Simply made for walking
Inspired by hilltribe costumes and made from hand-woven textiles, Larinn ensures feet stay pretty
LARINN, a small Thai footwear brand, brings comfort and style to the feet this summer with a collection of pastel hued shoes made out of old-fashioned, hand-woven textiles.
The brand is the brainchild of Lapapim Chairatnikorn, an advertising graduate of Bangkok University, who in 2010 roped her family into helping her open an online shop. They started by offering simple ballet slippers made of synthetics. Feedback, particularly from the younger set, was positive.
Today Larinn has gone a little more upmarket, and now sells well-designed shoes made from real leather and hand-woven fabrics created by artisans from Chiang Mai and Sakon Nakhon provinces. Naturally dyed using local plants and flowers, the footwear is available in pink, blue, orange and green as well as basic brown and black.
“We lost track of the amount of money we were spending on shoes so we decided to start our own brand. We teamed up with a shoe factory and were trained in shoe making and started by selling comfortable flats. Although the footwear sold well, we wanted to develop our designs and come up with several other looks,” Lapapim says.
“I personally like to dress in Northern-style outfits as I really appreciate the patterns of hand-woven textiles. They are also good for producing footwear and have the advantage of being easy to clean.”
Lapapim launched her latest designs at last month’s Bangkok International Fashion Fair & Leather
Fair and International Innovative Craft Fair, and her shoes quickly caught the eyes of local and foreign shoppers. The brand now has a full range of footwear including seamless oxfords, loafers, docksides, sandals and flip-flops.
“Chiang Mai is famous for wax hand-drawing and Hmong textiles and Sakon Nakhon is the best place to find natural dyeing techniques. Plants and flowers are used to obtain natural colours. For example, yellow comes the mango bark while green is obtained from Indian almond. Blue, of course, comes from the indigo plant,” Lapapim says.
Available in more than 100 designs and in sizes 35 through 42, Larinn’s shoes boast indigo-dyed cotton, pa khao ma and hand-woven pa sin uppers, some left plain and others patterned. The inners are cushioned with genuine leather and sponge to provide extra comfort and protect from pinching while the soles are a mix of leather and rubber.
Larinn will be selling its shoes at Siam Paragon’s Exotic Fair from Wednesday to April 17.
TOE TO HEEL
Check out Larinn’s latest collections at www.Larinn.com and on the Larinn page on Facebook. Call (081) 627 1011, (081) 989 7228.
