Le Flow Paris adds a touch
of class and spontaneity to
an increasingly competitive
market with paint-injected,
one-of-every-kind kicks
I n t e rv ie w Patrick Kasingsing
Hello! Please introduce yourself.
I am Lionel Le Floch, the founder of footwear brand LE FLOW Paris. I was
born in Marseille, the south of France, but I now call Paris home.
This spread: LE FLOW's
signature paint-injected soles
promise style statement and
exclusivity. No two soles are alike.
Tell us a little bit about how you found yourself in the realm of footwear
design. What made you fall in love with it?
I've always been attracted to footwear, especially sneakers. I would say I was
born right at the beginning of the foundation of sneaker culture.
What also really got me started being into footwear was my love for
basketball, a sport obviously linked with sneaker culture, and it started with
the 1992 US Olympic team, the Dream Team. I loved that game. However,
I couldn't play basketball because I was in a small village where there were
no hoops. I started to draw sneakers instead.
Years later, I got back into footwear when I did an internship at the House
of Berluti. There, I started to learn shoe design. After that, I did different jobs
for different brands. I was a footwear assistant, then a collection director for
Givenchy. I eventually came to a point where I wanted
to launch my own project to really show my personal
universe, so I started LE FLOW.
What pushed you to create your own footwear brand?
I really wanted to find a way to embody "poetry in
motion" but in footwear. I desired to create a brand that
is innovative, an expression of a new kind of luxury that
speaks of no boundaries in terms of design. I feel like, in
the creative market, we only often consider the designer
brands and I like the idea of somebody from the sneaker
culture muscling into the scene armed with individuality
and innovative design to push the boundaries even
more. That's one of the goals I want to accomplish with
LE FLOW.
73