Aprajita Toor Outlines Her Amazing 10-Year Journey of Crafting the Perfect, Bold and Brassy Indian Sandals

The brand Aprajita Toor came about as an outcome of her unwavering love for kolhapuris and her realisation of the intrinsic need for women to have comfortable, expressive, and wearable footwear. Today, Aprajita Toor is a label that represents the rich cultural history of India. Aprajita debuted her own kolhapuris in 2013 for the first time in innovative and striking patterns. In the years that followed, she experimented with edgy yet enjoyable designs like never before; the shoes walked the runways at national and international fashion weeks and gained fame.

10 years into making wonderful magic in the form of footwears, Aprajita Toor says, “I can live in a pair of kolhapuris, hence all my styles reflect a kolhapuri element. We stand today at a precipice and are waiting to leap forward and fly. With an ever- growing team of skilled karigars, our experience of failed and successful designs, honest feedback from our customers and the ambition to grow, we are where we want to be, and our shoes are at your feet”.

Excerpts from the interview:

A ten-year quest of creating beautiful shoes is on-going. Can you tell us about the inspiration for starting the label?

From sneakily sketching artwork in my school notebook during school hours to designing shoes for women, the journey has been a crazy rollercoaster ride. And it takes me immense pride in saying that I am on course to achieve what I aspired to when I established the brand. I wanted every woman to never compromise in size or comfort, as style is such an easy element to achieve, but to be able to give a combination of all 3 was the goal from the beginning.

At a large number of national and international fashion weeks, you have witnessed your shoes walk the runway. Can you tell us about one of your favourite ramp memories and why it’s so special?

It was definitely an honour to be a part of ‘Project runway’ at NFW in 2014 by way of designing shoes for Saisha Shinde’s collection, but my forever favourite will be the show I did for Debarun Mukerjee in 2013, the thrill mixed with fear and eyes full of dreams, the memory still gives me goose-bumps.

How will women be able to express themselves through their footwear, in your opinion as a footwear designer? With your ten years of experience, can you pick out a few?

We have always focused on comfort before design/style. Footwear has always been ignored when it comes to fashion and it is by far more important than clothing. Comfortable, well-fitted footwear not only gives you the confidence to walk without fear but also assurance that you are taken care of.

What aspect of designing do you find most enjoyable? What provides the designs and colour palettes with their inspiration?

Inspiration can come from the smallest of things around us when observed closely. I thrive on playing with colours and I love doing a mix and match of vibrant colour palettes. I’m always excited to experiment with different hues as well.

Sneakers with embroidery turned out to be a major find on their own. It is not the conventional sorts, so what exactly inspired you to come up with this unique vision?

I think what you design reflects a major part of you as an individual. I was always a rebel and always carried a strong need to stand out, also fondly called the black sheep in my house. I don’t like things that are common, so the need to have and do things differently always has inspired me. I’ve always sympathised with brides who dress heavily for the big day but would have sore feet by the time the celebrations ended. I wanted the brides to have a comfortable yet edgy side to the look. Embroidered sneakers were the perfect blend of traditional yet edgy style mixed with the comfort on offer, and it was accepted with so much love that we ended up making them in heels.

A number of celebrities have sported your lovely shoes. Who has styling been your favourite experience? Who wore the Aprajita Toor shoes for the first time, and most recently? Have you got any lovely stories to tell about the feedback you got from them?

Coming from a background that I do, I am humbled to have found great love and acceptance in the Film & Fashion industry. As I mentioned earlier, our focus on comfort and luxury has borne such remarkable results that today my label is known and loved for comfort and design both. One comment that always remains close to my heart is that my designs were the first shoes that did not give them a shoe bite. I had been making shoes for a few years then but hearing it made me realise that no one had ever said this to me before, but at the same time I had never received a complaint about a shoe bite either, so maybe it was true for a lot of my other clients too. It is hard for me to pick a favourite as every celebrity brings out a different look to the style but to see a vision come true is definitely a rewarding experience.

How do you see the year 2023? What else can we expect from you this year? Do you have any novel concepts in progress?

We are super excited to work on our new collection which is based on traditional Kutch art and would be a limited edition collection of exquisite pieces.

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