Greek handmade sandals, Ancient Greek Sandals is a brand the international market cannot get enough of. The sandal brand was featured in The Australian recently inducing dreams of Greek summer as we brave winter in parts of southeastern Australia.
The co-founders of the footwear brand Nikolas Minoglou and Christina Martini celebrated the 10th anniversary of the make, with ten new sandal models to mark the occasion. Greek mythology is the inspiration of these handmade sandals which pay homage to our ancient gods.
“When we launched this brand back in 2012, it was beyond our wildest dreams that we would be celebrating such a milestone and we are grateful for each and every customer over the last decade for coming on this journey with us,” Minoglou and Martini said.
To celebrate this ten year milestone they have created a very special capsule collection inspired by Ancient Greece’s enduring and culturally valuable gifts to the world, “it’s awe-inspiring, bewildering sculptures”.
Each sandal is an ode to the past, inspired by the works of art that depict these ancient deities in museums across the world.
Christina Martini, Ancient Greek Sandals co-founder, collaborated with art historian, Xenia Ventikou, and together they researched the famous sculptures finding huge amounts of inspiration in their exceptional details. Different techniques and materials such as clay beads, metallic ornaments, gold stamping, pleating, embroidery, and braiding have been used for the intricate designs of this collection.
There is the sandal Diana de Versailles, for example, inspired by the Artemis Hunter statue in the Louvre, and Crouching Venus with a subtle gold snake-style frame inspired by the bracelet Venus is wearing in the Jean Paul Getty Museum. Caryatid, is another chic slide, which takes from the draped skirt of the Caryatid statue.
The Winged Victory of Samothrace found in the Louvre is another source of inspiration for their creation where they use real feathers painted in gold in this unique sandal.
Their trademark, is a small gold wing buckle in respect to the messenger god Hermes, whose own winged pair of sandals enabled him to fly fast and free.
The Australian, talked of the brand’s philosophy of adding a contemporary spin on the traditional, and how that brought the Greek business to collaborate with an Australian jeweler Lucy Folk, to adorn some of the classic styles with hand-worked embellishments.
“When we started the brand, it was impossible to imagine that people around the world would wear our handmade sandals. People know about Greece because of its mythology and statues which are found in every archaeological museum around the world”. Christina Martini & Nikolas Minoglou, say.
To mark their first decade, the Ancient Greek Sandals are now launching two new categories. Bags and homewares, characteristic of Greek summer life.
For more information see: www.ancient-greek-sandals.com