He Took Shoes To Dizzying Heights. Now, He’s Bringing Them Down to Earth.

Style Points is a weekly column about how fashion intersects with the wider world.

Giuseppe Zanotti’s atelier in northern Italy doubles as a museum retrospective of his career. One after another, he holds up shoes to his Zoom camera for me to admire: a towering pair embellished with gold leaf, a stiletto ringed with concentric circles of beading. But his trove doesn’t just include fashion; next, he brandishes an image of his younger self, clutching a record by the ’70s R&B group the Detroit Emeralds like a prized possession. Before Zanotti was a designer, he was a radio DJ—spending much of his salary on accumulating records by everyone from Diana Ross and The Jackson 5 to Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. “Vinyl was my internet,” he says, his portal into another world of music and style. And over the course of 30 years, he’s dressed musicians from Mariah Carey to Rihanna and Taylor Swift. (The burgundy over-the-knee boots Swift recently sported to a Chiefs game were, he tells me, a reimagining of a style he introduced 22 years ago.)

Giuseppe Zanotti

Though Zanotti is looking back on three decades under his own shingle, he tells me that his career in fashion adds up to more like four. He first consulted for brands like Thierry Mugler and The Beene Bag (Geoffrey Beene’s cleverly named diffusion line), learning to expertly interpret another house’s vision. When he started his own label, he had a signature flourish in place: tricking out his stilettos and flats with endless embellishments.

Sabrina Carpenter wearing Giuseppe Zanotti platform heels while exiting Electric Lady Studios.

Back then, he says, “the designer was the driver of the outfit.” Customers considered themselves a Brand X or Y woman, and “the total look was the imperative. Now, the clientele is super smart and not so [brand] loyal.”

Alicia Keys attends the 2006 Grammy Awards wearing Giuseppe Zanotti shoes.

He sees 2004 as the beginning of his “rock” decade, spent outfitting talent for the Grammys and arena tours. Back then, he would work very directly with the artists—who included Destiny’s Child and Alicia Keys—and their stylists. “For me it was not business, it was a passion,” he says, though as the celebrity-industrial complex grew, those made-for-MTV moments would come to define his business, as well.

Lady Gaga wears towering Giuseppe Zanotti heels to the Venice International Film Festival premiere of Joker: Folie à Deux.

Circa 2014 came what he calls “the universe of casual” and an overall embrace of comfort. He was one of the designers who became synonymous with that high-fashion athleisure totem, the luxury sneaker. Now, he says, he’s looking ahead to a new era. “It’s time to go back to the original: more sophisticated, less fireworks, closer to reality. Daily shoes, but elegant.” Designers need to “consider what’s happening in the world,” and the fact that, in conjunction with the quiet luxury trend, people are opting for stripped-down pieces that will last for at least a decade or two. To that end, he’s released Icon Ring, an anniversary capsule collection reimagining the Ring style he first introduced over 20 years ago. With its spare lines and bejeweled toe-ring motif, it’s a fusion of his minimalist and maximalist impulses.

Taylor Swift wears Giuseppe Zanotti boots to a Kansas City Chiefs game.

“Now is the time to consider that the world has changed,” Zanotti says. “If I compare the world in the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s to now, it’s changed completely.” Yes, you’ll still see those signature embellishments, but he’s focusing on styles that are “more low profile. My woman,” he reflects, “doesn’t want to show off like before.”

A campaign image for the Icon Ring 30th anniversary capsule.

A piece from the collection.