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April 3, 2008 9:52 am
About a month ago, white, black, and navy oxfords by Michael Pasinkoff were stealthily added to shelves at Steven Alan’s Franklin Street store in Tribeca. Since then, those oxfords have just as stealthily been going like hotcakes; likewise, the heretofore unknown Pasinkoff has been doing a steady business at the Steven Alan storefront online, and at the newly opened Steven Alan store on North Robertson in Beverly Hills. So who is Michael Pasinkoff? And how did he come up with the perfect shoe for sidewalk-hoofing girls looking for something sturdy and androgynous to anchor springtime’s floral looks? Google him and you’re sent back to Steven Alan. Is Michael Pasinkoff really Steven Alan? “No,” says Alan, “and it’s not really a big secret, it’s just all pretty new and hard to explain.” Speaking from L.A., where he’s busy setting up two more of his eponymous shops (in Brentwood and in Venice), Alan went on to say that Michael Pasinkoff is the son of an established, albeit under-the-radar maker of similar oxfords for boys, a pair of which one Steven Alan staffer happened to wear to work one day. Intrigued because “They looked so cute on a girl,” Alan sought out the elder Pasinkoff and asked him about launching a capsule collection of the shoes for women. The project was turned over to the son, Michael, with manufacturing happening at the original factory in Italy. “They’re made like men’s shoes—great quality and great support,” Alan elaborates. “We’ve been doing so well with them, we’re now repping them out of our showroom and working with Michael to expand the collection for next season. There’ll be patent leather for Fall.” Mystery solved.
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