July 4th, 2023

Melanie Martinez x KOI – How it All Began

Today, we want to take you on a journey, to describe the excitement and passion we have experienced over the past few months, and going back further to tell the story of how this collaboration came around, an inspiring tale that intertwines fate, creative sparks, and a shared commitment to pushing boundaries.

Melanie's distinctive artistic vision and fearless approach to self-expression resonated deeply with us. We were captivated by Melanie's ability to transform music and visuals into immersive experiences, pushing boundaries and challenging conventions. Melanie's dedication to authenticity, combined with our own commitment to craftsmanship and innovation, created an immediate connection between us, two converging sparks which together created a thunderstrike of emotions on Dec 21st 2022.

January 2021
The vision is sparked internally, and ideas start flowing, from a list of names that were being proposed for collaborations one stood out, Melanie Martinez, as I was reading all the other names, this one felt different, I tingled after I said it, there was an internal reaction.. a gut feeling.
It was from this moment we knew which direction to go, and what we had to do, and we embarked on this pursuit to collaborate with Melanie Martinez.

August 2021
We negotiate with management and a deal is struck, behind the scenes we shared our initial moodboard and concepts with the potential of what we can create.

Jan 2022
This is where things heated up, Melanie is one of the best creative’s we have come across, seeing Melanie's work feels like you’re in touch with something angelic, something otherworldly, when the sketches first arrived, they felt ethereal. There was a design language within the work that feels so visceral, it moves you, you don’t feel the same, and forget what it used to feel like before.
The sketches allowed us to visualise the whole collection immediately, the sheet below drawn by Melanie was the ember which enflamed the process from here on out.

Aug 2022
Development of this nature takes months, it’s a very intensive process that requires fine tuning various elements of a shoe, below are some of the first samples we made from the collection where you can see the colours not coming out quite right. All the final samples were approved in August and we proceed with production.