On Dec. 4, Philéo Landowski will be honored with the Emerging Talent Award at the 38th annual FN Achievement Awards. Below is an article from the magazine’s Dec. 2 print issue about his rapid rise to fame.
Footwear wasn’t a field Paris-born designer Philéo Landowski imagined for his career. In fact, he was more interested in another form of mobility — automobiles.
But trading one for the other wasn’t as much of a sacrifice as one might assume.
“What interests me in a shoe is its interaction with a space, and the artistic aspect. But you can’t forget that it’s a product and there’s biomechanical engineering at play,” he told FN. “It questions the idea of volume, which you find in cars, in many fields of design and more loosely in fashion.”
Landowski was 17 when he started thinking about footwear as a potential path. After an injury put paid to his freestyle scootering days and a business he’d built around that when he was 13, he eschewed high school and formal education altogether.
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At an age when most are weighing up college options, he chose to intern at Celine in production at the tail end of Phoebe Philo’s tenure. Around that time, he also decided to design the sneakers that he’d been splashing “any money [he] ever had” on, giving the brand his first name, which means “I love” in ancient Greek.
Armed with sparse technical knowledge but a wealth of experience as a collector, Landowski got to work. The very first Phileo designs were retro-inflected chunky styles that played on textures and material mixes, primarily non-animal materials like canvas or plant-based leather alternatives, launched thanks to an initial 15,000-euro bank loan.
The shoes had barely hit the market when a chance meeting with British-born, Paris-based artist Katerina Jebb led to an introduction to Dover Street Market chief executive officer and Comme des Garçons International president Adrian Joffe.
“When I understood who Katerina’s friend ‘AJ’ was, I Googled him and spent the following two weeks being petrified about meeting [someone of his stature] at a time when I knew absolutely nobody in fashion,” Landowski said.
But their 30-minute appointment culminated in an offer to launch his footwear at the Comme des Garçons’ Trading Museum in Paris. That seal of approval was further cemented by a first commercial season breaking even. A year later, in 2021, Phileo joined the brand development division of Dover Street Market Paris and has continued to build momentum.
Ten seasons in, the brand is now distributed in 14 countries with close to 40 doors, with retail accounts including Dover Street Market in Paris, London, Ginza, New York City and Los Angeles, as well as Kith.
“What I find interesting about his approach is that it’s very diverse,” said Remo Hallauer, chief operating officer of Comme des Garçons Paris and Dover Street Market Paris. “He manages to navigate the worlds of sneakers and classical footwear, technical and artisanal techniques, modern and traditional silhouettes in a unique way.”
Landowski produces roughly 3,000 pairs annually, with around 30 references across 15 designs, made out of the same family-owned factory in Portugal he’s been working with since the beginning.
Famous wearers include Jackson Wang, South Korean musical artist Kim Han-bin (best known as “B.I.”) and the K-pop singer Jihoon of boy band group Treasure.
Phileo has also garnered attention from the French Ministry of Culture, which awarded the brand a bursary over the summer. And it won the accessories prize at the Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris in September.
One aspect of the business Landowski has particularly enjoyed is collaborations. “This brand has been my school, both in terms of understanding what I want in terms of design but also in how to speak with suppliers, craftspeople and even the designers I work with,” said the now-22-year-old designer.
“I need to work with other creatives around me, be influenced by people because it ultimately gives a lot of depth to the product,” he continued. “The idea behind collaborations is to go find know-how we don’t have, achieve something we could not reach alone while keeping our distinct identities.”
Under his belt are the footwear he’s been producing since 2022 for Comme des Garçons, a recent collaboration with Adidas that culminated in an installation by Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata in the courtyard of Dover Street Market Paris, and his work as a creative consultant for outdoor specialist Salomon, between 2021 and 2024.
For Benjamin Grenet, design director of footwear at Salomon, Landowski’s strength is the freshness of his approach and his willingness to try ideas on for size. “He has deep knowledge of fashion, as well as footwear, but he’s not weighed down by it at all,” said Grenet. “He leaves behind all constraints and concentrates on what makes us dream. What we did together, we could not have done on our own internally.”
Unfettered creative dialogue is also the word when teaming up with independent labels such as Rokh, Kidill and Louis Gabriel Nouchi. “His on-point approach to business struck me despite his young age,” said Paris-based Nouchi. “It’s not easy on mono-product brands, but he had a really clear vision.” Together, they developed for spring 2022 a thick-soled shoe with a textile upper inspired by marble-print paper nodding to Nouchi’s love for books.
Next up for Landowski is consolidating these early successes into a lasting business. To that end, he’s highly focused on further developing the Phileo retail presence in the U.S., a market accounting for around 20 percent of the business. “We’re present, but there’s always room to grow,” he said.
For 38 years, the annual FN Achievement Awards — often called the “Shoe Oscars” — have celebrated the style stars, best brand stories, ardent philanthropists, emerging talents and industry veterans. The 2024 event is supported by sponsors Listrak, Marc Fisher, Nordstrom and Vibram.
