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Shoe designer Trevor Houston had a feeling The Row jellies were going to blow up. “We were not sure about even doing that shoe,” remembers Houston, who was head of footwear design for The Row at the time of release. “I was like, ‘This is it. We have to push for this. I just have a feeling about it,’” he says. “I’m a Pisces, I have a weird intuition about things sometimes.”
Now, Houston, who designs shoes for Khaite and Tory Burch, and spent his early career at Marc Jacobs, is bringing this sixth sense to Herbert Levine, the New York brand that was a footwear staple in the 20th century, but has been dormant for almost 50 years. As creative director, Houston is tasked with bringing Herbert Levine into current times. “It’s like [painter] Milton Avery, with a kiss from Miuccia Prada with a mark of Beth Levine’s humour,” he says. (Houston, an avid fan of Mrs Prada’s work, runs the @OldPrada Instagram account.)
For those unfamiliar: Herbert Levine (the brand) was launched in 1948 by Herbert Levine and his wife Beth, who was also the designer. (Mr Levine was in charge of production management, sales and marketing.) Products were made in New York’s Garment District (on 31 West 31st Street), until the brand shuttered in 1975. Manolo Blahnik famously called Beth “the most influential American shoe designer of the 20th century”. Today, Herbert Levine is owned by investment holding company Luvanis, which acquired the brand from shoe designer Dennis Comeau in 2010.
For Houston, the appointment is a dream come true. “Beth Levine as a shoe designer is the golden child,” he says. “She really was the Ferragamo of America.” Houston got the job, in part, because of his deep archive of — and affinity for — vintage Herbert Levine shoes. The Luvanis team stumbled across a Coveteur article in which he spoke about his obsession with Beth. “Probably 65 per cent of the shoes that I collect are Herbert Levine,” Houston admits. Now, he’s designing them.
His first collection for the brand was soft launched with a New York Fashion Week preview in February. On 4 September, it lands in 12 stockists globally. Wholesale partners at launch include Harrods (UK), Saks Fifth Avenue (US), Tomorrowland (Japan), Le Bon Marche (France, where there will be a shop-in-shop designed by Houston), Antonia (Italy), Beyman (Türkiye) and Boon the Shop (South Korea). Prices range from $695 to $2,200.
There will be no direct-to-consumer (DTC) distribution at the start. “If you want to have a real reaction from the market, wholesale is the best answer,” says CEO Gianfranco Maccarrone, who was previously CEO of French luggage brand Au Départ, also relaunched by Luvanis. “The customers need to love the collection — and they need to purchase the collection.”
The store selection process was strict, Maccarrone says. “Our team in sales is very strong with a lot of experience, so they know where to go, who are the key customers to have on the list in order to create that word-of-mouth,” he says. “That is the best advertising that you can have.” He adds with a smile: “Thank God, everyone [on our list] said yes.” Twelve more retailers will stock the Spring/Summer 2026 collection, which will be delivered in November.
Looking back, looking forward
Houston’s designs are deeply rooted in the Herbert Levine aesthetic: bold, fun, and above all, wearable. The history is rich. Worn by the likes of stars from Cher and Nancy Sinatra to Marilyn Monroe, Herbert Levine’s heritage is steeped in pop culture. And though Beth is famous for having made a shoe that had to be glued onto the foot, her most innovative designs that Houston found in the archive were those that were wearable and functional, he says.
The goals for the shoes are also deeply influenced by Beth’s own practice. “You want it to feel relevant, but you don’t want it to be a trend. You want it to be style, so that it’s everlasting,” Houston says. “This is very much inspired by Beth Levine and the way that she worked because she was dressing women,” he says. “That was her goal. It was functional, interesting, new-technique kind of footwear. It wasn’t about the shoe that you wear once and then that’s it. It was really: you go to work and then you go to a party.”
To this end, the creative director is experimenting with innovations to bring Beth’s styles and fabrics into the present day. He recalls a shoe she designed in 1960, made of TPU and PVC. He’s keen to recreate a version of it — albeit updated. “It’s trying to take something that she coined and how to bring it into today,” he says. “Is the material softer? Is it more breathable? It’s all of those things.” The team is exploring different techniques and materials to achieve this.
That doesn’t mean the shoes were — or will be — serious. Quite the opposite, in fact. There’s a humour to the brand, Houston says, that influences his design. “You want something that is really strong but then kind of has some depth to it where you see it and you look at it in different ways and you’re like, ‘Huh, that’s funny. That’s not normally the way that I would imagine it,’” he says.
Among his personal highlights is the Milton Mule; an homage to Avery (a favourite artist of Beth’s), it is a heeled mule, split with different colours. “Weird colours,” Houston says. “There’s acid and this weird yellow and pink. It gives it a twist.” Another favourite is the Silhouette Boot, which is a pull-on with a singular seam along the back. “It’s just very chic and precise,” he says. They’re all made in Italy, in part because New York’s Garment District no longer has the necessary machinery.
While the design ethos may be rooted in the OG Herbert Levine, Maccarrone has no intention of resting on the name’s laurels when it comes to brand messaging. In the CEO’s view, Houston’s immersion in the Herbert Levine world means that Herbert Levine in 2025 doesn’t need to communicate about heritage at length. “We don’t want to be so nostalgic talking about the past,” Maccarrone says. “Heritage is something you own. You have it, you don’t need to talk that much. What is important is how to use what you have, mix it properly, reinvent it in a very sophisticated way and put it on the market.”
A (new) world of Herbert Levine
Houston and Maccarrone’s vision for Herbert Levine in 2025 is to offer something new and different to what is already on the market. It’s no mean feat. “With so much saturation now, it’s really hard to be different,” Houston says. “And that’s a major goal of what we’re trying to do: we want to make sure that we’re different but approachable and wearable, also with that twist of design and innovation and technique.”
In recent years, luxury brands have faced critique for becoming complacent — world-building has fallen flat to economic woes and pared-back marketing that relies on celebrity over aesthetic and creativity. Both Houston and Maccarrone are intent on going in the other direction.
Both recall the story of Herbert Levine shoes being delivered in Rolls-Royce cars in the ’60s. This is the level of luxury — and lore — that the Herbert Levine team is aiming to cultivate this year and beyond. “It’s taking that and infusing it with a little bit of today, a little bit of cinema from the time period, and a little bit of what’s relevant for now,” Houston says.
It’s Houston’s first time owning different touchpoints of a brand — design; imagery; packaging; socials; campaigns — after having operated squarely in the shoe domain within brands that operated worlds far beyond footwear. Now, he’s building out the Herbert Levine world from the shoes outward. “Even working for these brands, I would always be like, ‘Well, this would be a good shoe to do because we can put it in the window at this store,’” he says.
The first hint of this world-building was on display at last season’s showroom, hosted uptown and designed to look like an apartment, complete with a 1600s fireplace and a 1700s lamp. “That’s the language of the brand that I’m trying to instill: it’s like, you go to visit someone uptown and they’re in this beautiful uptown apartment,” Houston says. “It’s how I imagine Beth would be — obviously, in my head, it’s probably a little bit of my dream.”
Maccarrone’s ambition is to build the brand off of this dream. First, with initial collections. Second, by expanding to more global retailers with pop-ups and shop-in-shops. Then, eventually DTC. And, ultimately, standalone stores. “That will help us to implement and transmit the brand’s DNA to the final client — not only through the shoes, but through the entire setup,” Maccarrone says. “It’s a brand that needs to be presented.”
Correction: In Italy, the brand will now be stocked in Antonia, not Pozzi Lei as previously reported.
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