He works in Paris, thinks in Molfetta. The shoes that slip onto the feet of Hailey Bieber, Rosé and Zoë Kravitz arrive from a small studio on the rue de Bellechasse, sketched in pencil and fought over in millimetres. The name on the door is Anthony Vaccarello. The name on the shoes, though rarely spoken aloud, is Corrado De Biase.
De Biase is Design Director of men's and women's shoes at Saint Laurent. He has the kind of role that sits quietly inside a house. No runway bow, no cover interview before this season. A whisper of biography: born in Molfetta in southern Italy, trained in Rome, early years in the ateliers of Karl Lagerfeld, then John Galliano, then Jonathan Anderson at Loewe. The houses where shoes are taken seriously as objects.
He arrived at Saint Laurent in time to shape the silhouette of the current era. The Loulou pump for Spring/Summer 2025. A slingback with a toe stretched almost to caricature. A boot called Joe for the men's Fall/Winter 2025 show, heavy in the shaft, narrow at the ankle, worn with cropped trousers and nothing else. Shoes with a personality you can identify from a pavement away.
The Loulou
The Loulou is a pump in the classic French idiom, which is to say it is mostly toe. The leather runs long past the metatarsal into a tapered point. The heel sits low and sharp. The ankle strap arrives as a thought, a thin leather cord that seems to catch the foot mid-step. Black patent. Ivory satin. A cherry red that refuses to behave.
Hailey Bieber wore a pair in New York last autumn. Rosé wore them onstage in Seoul. Zoë Kravitz in Paris. Three women with very little in common, aesthetically, choosing the same shoe for the same reason: it makes a leg look like a line drawing.
De Biase sketches from emotion first. He has said that nothing begins without feeling, that the collection happens in his mind before a single last is carved. He looks at gardens and flowers rather than at archive. He does not rework vintage. The Loulou does not reference a Saint Laurent shoe from 1981. It references the way a woman's ankle catches the light at six in the evening.
The Joe
The Joe boot is a different proposition. Thick sole, tall shaft, a squared-off toe that sits flat against the floor. It reads militaristic until you touch it, and then the leather reveals itself as something softer than expected, almost glove-like at the ankle. A boot that wants to be worn hard.
Vaccarello showed it in January with narrow black trousers tucked inside. A Berliner, a Parisian, a man from Seoul. The same boot, three silhouettes. That is the quiet discipline of Saint Laurent footwear at the moment. Each shape meant to flex across bodies and cities without shifting its character.
A shoe is a small sculpture. You argue with it in millimetres. Then you forget the argument and walk.
Elena VossQuiet hand
The house has always had good shoes. Yves Saint Laurent himself loved a sharp pump. Hedi Slimane, in his tenure, gave the brand its skinny boot vocabulary. Vaccarello has preferred flats and stiletto slingbacks, a more grown-up inventory. De Biase inherits all of it and none of it. His job is to keep the silhouette recognisably Saint Laurent without repeating any of it.
He works closely with Vaccarello on every silhouette. The process is apparently slow and involves a great deal of arguing about millimetres. The Loulou toe was redrawn six times before it settled. The Joe shaft height shifted three centimetres between prototype and final run. None of this is visible on the shoe. That is the point.
The women who wear De Biase's work rarely name him. They name the shoe. That is how he wants it. A designer of objects, standing behind them, out of frame.
Saint Laurent A/W 2026, Paris. Courtesy Saint Laurent
The next Saint Laurent collection is only weeks away. The cruise shows begin in May. A new pump is circulating already in fittings on the rue de Bellechasse, if the whispers are accurate. The toe is longer again. The strap is thinner. The argument continues in millimetres.