As John Lobb’s first-ever Artistic Director, Paula Gerbase’srespectful disrespect for tradition is redesigning the British shoemaker’s creative footprint.
BY HASSAN AL-SALEH
PHOTOGRAPHY PAULA GERBASE
It is said that behind every great man is a woman. For English shoemaker John Lobb, that woman is Paula Gerbase, appointed as the brand’s very first Artistic Director in 2014.
Gerbase’s design sensibility has always been tailored to menswear. A graduate of Central Saint Martins in London, she built her career in tailoring at Savile Row - one of very few women to do so - at Hardy Amies and Kilgour, before assuming the role of Creative Director at British sportswear brand Sunspel.
With no prior experience in shoe-making, Gerbase uses her highly-curated eye for style and detail and insatiable curiosity for new materials and construction techniques to steer the creative evolution of John Lobb.
Sharing Lobb’s sense of adventure and love of nature and the outdoors, ease of movement informs her creative process. Over the past five years, she has developed new manufacturing processes, reimagining historical styles and reintroducing a women’s ready-to-wear collection. Simply put, her tenure is a celebration of innovation and unparalleled quality and craftsmanship.
An opponent of the fashion system, she believes that preservation and a respect for heritage is sometimes even more vital than the new. One key distinguishing factor is marrying a sense of timelessness with effortless modernity that she has brought to what is fundamentally a heritage brand. What’s more contemporary than that?
“I definitely knew it wasn’t going to be something that I needed to put my stamp on. It was going to be much more like archaeology. Dusting off beautiful things that had come from that past and bringing them forward.”