The French fashion line Dévastée habitually provides a welcome interruption each Fashion Week in Paris with beautiful allusions to death, suicide and a Gothic obsession with the link between love and mortality. Co-founders Ophelie Klere and Francois Alary started the line in 2004 with, according to them, “various little depressing things. The darker the better.” The unique label has carved a growing niche for itself among the mammoths of Parisian fashion houses; Klere and Alary declaring themselves initially “not that interested in fashion” while demonstrating the clarity of their own vision.
     The pair are not averse to collaboration, as Dévastée’s Spring/Summer 2010 collection demonstrates. French independent shoe designer Marion Hanania introduced her own line of shoes eight years ago at the young age of 22, and became acquainted with Klere and Alary when she was selected for the Fashion Festival in Hyeres in 2005. Five years later, Hanania designed shoes for Dévastée’s 2010 S/S collection.
     Hanania tells us, “I wanted the shoes to stand alone, as a real collection, and not only be an accessory to a clothes line. Still, I wanted them to be obviously recognizable as Dévastée shoes.” Inspired by the line’s black-and-white look as well as its emphasis on cut-outs and heavy prints, Hanania created a line of shoes that incorporated her own aesthetic — “tightly linked to drawings”, as she puts it — to create a singular collection of shoes that beautifully displays both Hanania’s careful attention to detail and Dévastée’s sharp, dark designs.