The founders of Le Monde Béryl are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the brand this year, by opening a store in New York City. During their first photoshoot at their space on 67th and Madison, Lily (creative director) and Katya (CEO), who agreed to start a brand together on a bench in Berkeley Square in London’s Mayfair in 2016, are nestled together on extremely plush bespoke upholstery. With a splendid oil painting hanging behind them – The Splinter, from 2024, by American artist Beau Gabriel – the pair, whose business remains entirely independent, are beaming at one another.

“I was quite overwhelmed,” says Katya on the moment she first stepped through the door of their flagship. “It’s such an important landmark for the brand, and for Lily and I and the whole team. I’m having goosebumps thinking about it.” Lily smiles. “It felt wonderful when Katya arrived because I had been there through some of the inevitable trials and tribulations as the space was being finished, so it was so great and reassuring to have the positivity of it all reflected in Katya’s eyes when she walked in.”

The space has been designed by independent art advisor Silka Rittson-Thomas in collaboration with architects Tutto Bene. “On the one hand I was thinking about the principles of the Renaissance, specifically around lighting, reflections and proportions, while the idea was to create a space which feels cabaret or theatre-like, a place of discovery,” explains Rittson-Thomas. “David Lynch’s Club Silencio [in Mulholland Drive] was an inspiration.” 

“The whole atmosphere is very David Lynch,” Katya agrees. “I wanted it to feel like a collector’s home” adds Lily. “Where everything is purposefully selected for its own individual beauty instead of having very replicable modular furnishing like so many stores have now. This was one of the reasons I wanted to work with Silka, as she has that kind of eye and is a complete perfectionist.”

A continuous mirrored wall, veiled with sweeps of translucent paint, defines the interior and creates distorted reflections, except at the feet which are – sensibly – reflected in sharp focus. The collections are displayed within wooden cabinetry with mirrored doors. A pair of 20th-century Murano twin-branched wall sconces are a nod to Venice, the brand’s first shoe design being an iteration on the Venetian gondolier slipper, while an 18th-century repoussé mirror features beautiful beading details. Aside from the Beau Gabriel oil painting, also on display is a fantastic photograph by Anne Collier, Caravaggio By Nikon, from 2012. Caravaggio as a theme looms large in the world of Le Monde lately, with the Italian master’s Madonna of the Rosary, circa 1603, appearing in the brand’s latest campaign. Lensed by Leigh Johnson, the campaign was shot in the historic picture galleries and back-of-house conservation studios at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Having met while working at Phillips auction house in London, Le Monde Béryl gained traction swiftly. Designer and creative director Alex Eagle threw a launch for the brand at her store on Lexington Street in Soho. Tom Chapman, Matches’ co-founder, sent his accessories buyer to see them. Moda Operandi wanted to sell the shoes. And thus a community grew around Le Monde Béryl, and as collections expanded in breadth, a strong global retail presence followed. As did appearances on the feet of a particularly talented array of humans, including artists Camille Henrot and Precious Okoyomon, actors Julianne Moore, Rebecca Hall and Zoë Kravitz, and director Chloé Zhao.

All the brand’s shoes are handcrafted in Italy, specifically in the Veneto region, famed for its historic artisanal principles. The design language, on the other hand, centres around architectural silhouettes, unexpected fabrication combinations and a very specific colour palette. 

Tony Scott’s The Hunger from 1983, starring Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon, is a film Lily says she constantly returns to, specifically in terms of characterisation and design sensibility. 

As Katya puts it: “Shoes are ultimately a vehicle that take you through life. Pretty much no matter where we go, we put on shoes to go there. Often that is where ideas, shapes, even colours [for the collections] come from – the experiences that we have in our daily lives.”  

On that note, let’s begin. 

Simon Chilvers: Rewind 10 years. When you look back on this first decade of Le Monde Béryl, what do you remember most about the start?

Lily Atherton Hanbury & Katya Shyfrin: Hand-stamping boxes at Katya’s house! [both laugh]. 

Lily: The real origins of the brand were us sitting on a bench in Berkeley Square [London] talking about this idea for a shoe brand, and I said, ‘Do you want to do it with me?’ Katya said yes, and as soon as we decided to do it together, things serendipitously fell into place. Then we moved quite quickly. I think it was about a month and then we were prototyping. 

Katya: We started talking about it in the spring. I [had] started Phillips in February, and Le Monde Béryl was incorporated by October, [when] we started receiving samples. What was amazing about this was how fearless we were.

Lily introduced me to a lot of her references, which were new to me. I had always loved art and knew certain things from visiting museums with my family – I was aware how these experiences can open you up – but Lily’s point of view was very specific. It wasn’t just art; it was like art through life. But yes, we basically started a shoe brand completely out of nowhere [laughs].

Lily: We made our original branding with the team I used to do [jewellery magazine] On The Rocks with, and they gave us a physical stamp because it was the least expensive. It also felt like the most personal way to present the brand. But it was, basically, an ink stamp! 

Katya: We’d really only produced enough to have in Alex [Eagle]’s store and maybe to sell to friends, but suddenly Moda [Operandi] wanted everything we had! So we had to very quickly activate everything… It was all very thrilling and exciting to tap into this completely new world.

Lily: The thinking and the action were intertwined; we were learning by doing it and working out our ideas through the making, which is basically how it still is now. 

Simon: That seems like the beauty of the brand in a way. This idea of learning through doing things together. 

Katya: That’s how we have approached this 10 years; every single brick in the building of the brand was put there with our own hands.

Simon: How do you think you’ve changed as people and as creative partners these past 10 years? 

Lily: I would say that something that hasn't changed is that we still have a checks and balances system, whether it’s strategic or creative. We’re still like a yin and yang on the decision-making process, and I think that is a key part of the success of the brand. A lot of it has been led by intuition, and the more we have felt confident in our intuition, the more we have leaned into it.

Katya: Ten years in business gives you a thicker skin, because, yes, we have had a lot of wins and successes, but it has come with a lot of challenges. We have tried to stay true to the original idea, and over this period, have built a loyalty and trust in each other that has helped get us to the next level. 

Simon: That next level is this incredible flagship. Why New York? 

Katya: After the Paris pop up last year [2025], we knew we wanted to do a New York iteration so we started to look for a space and when we found one, it was also available as a permanent space. That original fearlessness kicked back in. 

Lily: We had been thinking quite open-mindedly about which city to open our first store in, and having a store was a clear future intention: a next-phase goal. It just actually happened that the right space came up, and that coincided with the fact that New York is our biggest market, and a lot of our community and collaborators live in New York, so it felt instinctively right. We had looked at a lot of spaces, but all of them felt too commercial. This space had more of a gallery feeling. 

Katya: It was an incredibly short turnaround. In January 2026, there was no pressing plan for the store. Lily started to look at spaces in February and by June, we’d signed the lease. The work didn’t start until the end of June, so in two and a half months, it went from nothing to opening the store. [laughs] 

Lily: It was a raw space with a concrete floor, and some of those elements we’ve kept, like the stairs and the entrance, and then we have carpeted the rest. It’s an L-shape, so you walk in downstairs, and the space unfolds. Even though the cabinets will mostly be open, Silka [Rittson-Thomas] wanted to pursue this idea that the store had the possibility of myriad interactions; a kind of performance between space, staff and visitors. The idea of movement within the space, of discovery, a sense of concealing and revealing – these were all important to us. 

Simon: It seems like the shoes favour a kind of reduction and specificity of materials and details, no obvious branding – which is echoed in the store.

Lily: There’s no checkout counter and the mirrored cabinets can close, so the commercial aspect is really concealed. It feels like a space not a store. We want people to enjoy the details, whether that’s in the textures and colours, a pair of 20th-century Murano wall sconces, or an Anne Collier photograph – everything has a meaning to us, and was part of a process of curation and making, down to the horsehair blinds from Somerset or the silk tassels made in Cairo. We want to share all of that as part of the experience of being in our space rather than it only being a space to sell shoes; in a way it’s part of the way we think about how experiences inform design.

There is very often an autobiographical reference point to our shoes. They come from an experience or a memory, or are inspired by something we might want to do – a future memory. Shoes are a fundamental component of these memories, these fantasies. 

Katya: We really want people to feel as if they have walked into our world. Everything – all the references and details in the collections – are purposeful, and selected for their individual beauty. We also wanted a sense of playfulness too, with the mirrors and the blurred dimensions and the way people might interact with those. 

Lily: It’s very dreamlike. 

Katya: Mysterious. 

Simon: How do you think the design language of the brand has evolved since the beginning? The collections are growing, but are still tightly edited. How do you expand without losing the essence of the brand? 

Lily: In a way, it’s still a lot like in the beginning; essentially a reduction of specific ideas, influences and movement. Whether that’s borrowing from saddlery, custom-made men’s shoes, Venetian slippers. The idea of embellishing a vernacular style has remained consistent. But I think that where we’ve fine-tuned everything is the level of detail and rigour in the designs themselves; exploring different shapes through evolving references. But it’s still very much connected to that first design and how we wanted to translate the Venetian gondolier slipper into a luxury product.

Katya: It’s a lot of trial and error still. Lily is a much more visual person than I am. She can imagine what a shoe design will look like in her head. I can absolutely not do that. But for me, when I see something made, I usually know instinctively if it feels right for the collection. And even though both Lily and I have quite different personal styles, they complement [each other] even if they don’t exactly match. It really helps to bounce off each other.

Simon: You’re always throwing your foot into a sample whenever I see you in the showroom! 

Katya: Yes, because as soon as I see something new, I want to try it and feel it. It’s the wearer who makes the shoe. A shoe can complement and add something to an outfit but it can look absolutely different when it’s worn by Lily or when it’s worn by me, or by someone else. It’s a different translation. 

Simon: You’ve started to answer the next question: a good pair of shoes should do what exactly? What are the guiding principles for whether a shoe makes it from ideation stage to being in the collection?

Lily: I think, as mentioned, we often approach the collections from the perspective of: designing for the experiences we want to have. And practically, we plan a skeleton collection, refine that and animate from there. But I think with everything, it’s about constantly learning through making, putting meaning and our point of view into every aspect, every detail without things feeling heavy or obvious. 

We might reference a lot of other physical objects, the interior of a vintage car or something from a film, things that might carry a lot of meaning for us. These things don’t necessarily come across, or need to come across to people, but it’s part of what I think has worked about the way we work. 

Katya: We want to make things that people are inspired to wear and [we want people to] feel inspired while wearing them. We also want people to collect our shoes, and possibly buy the same style in a new colour next season. Honing recognisable details that express good design is fundamental for us in making a good pair of shoes, whether that is a pointed toe on our Babouche Kitten or the curved heel on the Mica Mule. 

Katya: Shoes are ultimately vehicles that take you through life, literally. Pretty much no matter where we go, we put on shoes to go there. And as Lily says, that is often where ideas, shapes, even colours come from: from experiences that we have in our daily lives. After 10 years of working together we have lived through so many experiences, and that is how the shoe wardrobe of the brand – the different styles we’ve added to the initial flats – has, in part, evolved.  

Simon: This evolving shoe wardrobe is almost like a reflection of not just both of you but your relationship. Since this relationship began and the brand started, fashion has become such a bigger part of culture. How do you think about that as the brand evolves? 

Lily: Art has always been inextricable from the brand and central to the way it started and continues to evolve. So many of the experiences we are talking about in regard to making shoes began with art fairs, galleries, going to see as many things as we possibly could, so it wasn’t really ever about starting from thinking about fashion or trends. It was from seeing art and therefore standing and walking! But of course fashion’s relationship to art is ever-evolving too. With AI and the digital world, the idea of physical experiences and reactions feels more crucial than ever.

Katya: We are also not really interested in trends. It’s much more about making a beautiful shoe than a trendy shoe. 

Simon: Even if the brand isn’t about fashion or trends, quite often you seem to know exactly what people are going to want to put on their feet! Can you talk about how you distil cultural ideas into minimalist styles, while capturing the current mood? 

Lily: It comes back to instinct. I do sometimes think about why trends emerge at certain moments, and perhaps that is to do with [the fact that] we are all looking at similar references, whether it’s exhibitions, films or other pivotal cultural things. Moods emerge and that is what fashion is; fashion is the zeitgeist. And while we are thinking outside of trends, there will be moments when we hit on what people want, because it is also what we want. 

Simon: With all the noise in fashion, though, it is quite hard to cut through. Making things that are reduced, restrained, minimal, could be considered rather brave? 

Lily: Well, maybe it is also a reaction to the noise? We definitely want to go against a kind of busy-ness for the sake of it. We want to make something that lasts and feels like it has some permanence. We’ve always been inspired by finding the best and pushing our artisans and the craft to a level that is very uncommon in today’s market. 

Simon: There’s a multidisciplinary thread that runs through Le Monde Béryl. Can you talk about the influences and inspirations that are central to the brand’s creative dialogues? This seems particularly relevant with the new campaign, which was shot at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and seems to bring together many facets that have been building around the brand narrative, and which brings things back to the idea of community, and people in a room looking at beautiful things together. 

Katya: I think that essence has really translated into the campaign, particularly in the films. It really brings this idea of the physicality of a museum, how that elevates you individually, alongside the idea of a community of people in dialogue. For me, I feel like I am in the room [with this campaign]. 

Lily: I talk to a philosopher, Todd Altschuler, once a week and we were discussing ideas during the making of the fall collections. I'd recently been inspired by Eyes of Laura Mars, set in 1970s’ New York. The camera has a voyeuristic, clairvoyant lens; it creates both distance and intimacy, an inversion of reality and fantasy. I love the style and colour palette of that time too. I imagined a specific boot from the fall/winter collection – the Camille Tall Boot – worn to visit my friend Jennifer Sliwka, Director of the Picture Gallery at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the sound of footsteps through back passages, lifts, main galleries, attic spaces. I was interested in visually communicating the light and dust and atmosphere, breathing in someone else’s knowledge and the joy of shared curiosity. 

We worked with Leigh Johnson [photographer] and Peter Miles [branding consultant] on evolving our ideas and concept, bringing in Vanessa Reid to style it. Jennifer completely opened up the museum to us which was incredible and exactly how I had envisaged this future memory to unfold. Leigh brought her artistic lens and own interpretation, adding a cinematic essence, while Vanessa made the clothes feel as if they really blended in with the narrative, but whilst also being pieces with a design history and integrity. I felt, during the shoot, you could see this character moving around the museum, experiencing it, and while she was being played by Anna [De Rijk] in many ways she was modelled on Jennifer. As Katya says, when you walk into a museum, it can elevate you and open you up. It is curiosity and the opportunity to absorb knowledge – and yes, in many ways this campaign does underline a lot of our multidisciplinary sensibilities and the tension between past and future. 

Katya: It also, in many ways – from seeing the incredible art handlers moving artworks, to Anna moving through the galleries amongst different time periods in art history – epitomises our central philosophy: beauty in movement. 

Simon: Italian craftsmanship and artisanal principles are so central to the brand vision. Discuss. 

Katya: The region of Veneto is where knowledge is passed down from generation to generation and it is a whole region of craftspeople who love what they do and really believe in the process and the quality of making. This part of the industry has been really preserved and it is such a thrill for us to collaborate with these artisans and utilise their skilfulness and push their capabilities. They continue to help us understand the possibilities and work with us to best realise our ideas. Over the 10 years of working there we have also really understood that you can’t produce all the shoes in one place and that you need to find speciality skills and makers to create certain things. We love how much this has opened us up to a completely new world. 

Lily: We’ve been really fortunate that the people who are really passionate about craftsmanship are very open and love to share information, if making is what you care about. Veneto has been producing shoes since the 13th century. Wealthy Venetian merchants would spend their summers along the Riviera del Brenta and brought their household servants, including the calegheri, their own personal shoemakers and cobblers with them. This knowledge and ‘delicate hand’ continues to be passed down. 

Simon: What do you think unites the people that continually wear Le Monde Béryl? 

Lily: I think they appeal to people with a wide-ranging aesthetic interest; people who aren’t necessarily looking for a particular trend but rather want something to wear that is elegant and beautifully made but can adopt their own personal style signature.

Katya: It’s often people who are visually curious. They maybe share some of our interests in culture and travel, and appreciate the exotic, but also the everyday. They’re probably quite on the move, and live busy lives with work, friends, family. They’re smart, fun and maybe like to live their lives with a certain energy.

Simon: Do you have an early memory that you think connects you to your creative path?

Katya: For me, it’s my father. He encouraged me to do exciting things and be creative, be ambitious. He loves beautiful objects. He loves jewellery – he will buy stones and then create jewellery pieces himself. He loves beauty. During my childhood, we would visit Luxor in Egypt, Petra in Jordan, visiting palaces – my father loves a palace! He feels in a past life he was a king [laughs]. So, he’s fostered that love of beauty within me. He would often bring us presents back when he would travel, but he also instilled in me that you can’t just enjoy beauty, you have to work for it. 

Lily: I would say, for me, it’s my older sister, who is an artist and has always been, from an early age, extroverted in her style – theatrical. My mother is also really stylish and her best friends had a store in Georgetown, [Washington D.C.], called The Right Stuff and she had all the best pieces from that time – my sister and I still love them, the shoes in particular. This all definitely made a huge impression on me. But I was also a tomboy, and grew up riding horses and I had an obsession with custom-made riding boots, and I guess this kind of functional austerity. The blend of this horsey aesthetic with my mother and my sister’s influences is definitely where my eclectic vision originates. 

Simon: Love both of those. What are your highlights from the last 10 years? 

Katya: I think we’d both say the team we have built. It has been a beautiful transformation, because we started just the two of us, and now we have such wonderful people helping us to evolve the brand, and to transform it. It's been such a huge piece of collective work to get this far.  

Lily: Definitely working with amazing people whether that’s Jennifer [Sliwka] at KHM or Kim Sion  [creative consultant] or Silka [Rittson-Thomas]. So many great creative people, and hopefully we encourage creative autonomy and a certain amount of freedom amongst our collaborators and team; the brand has to be cohesive, but allowing creative freedom is crucial for evolution, ideas, pushing things forward.

We have a project coming for 2027, which has been such a brilliant collaborative, conceptual experiment and really illustrates the bringing together of two different cultural approaches to craft. I can’t wait to share more about this.  

Simon: Is there a quote or particular philosophy you live by?

Katya: That goes back to the craftsmanship conversation, what came from my father when I was a kid. He would say: ‘We're not rich enough to buy inexpensive, non-quality things.’ Basically, it’s all about the objects of use that have a meaning and that will last a long time. Investing in the worthwhile and the meaningful. 

Lily: Something I have really learned and honed as a kind of practice through this past decade is we’re like an accumulation of everything from the past, and you can't really predict the future, so make absolutely the most of what you’re doing right now… The learning, the travelling and the experiences we have with our team, being able to work in Italy. These things make me feel really grateful because it’s like we’ve made the work and the life that I would have dreamed for myself, and they’re so intertwined. I remember to be grateful for that every day. And the idea of learning through the making, which has really arisen from the brand, and is also about relationships and finding their meaning, too, through this process of making things together.

Simon: What words or ideas would you most like people to associate with Le Monde Béryl? 

Lily: When we were starting the brand, there were a few veins of inspiration repeatedly circulating: Bauhaus, Le Corbusier, the movement of cruise ships and trains, the movement and rituals of everyday life. Form follows function. And often thinking about things from an anthropological perspective. Perhaps all of this ultimately led to ‘beauty in movement’ becoming the central philosophical thread of the brand. 

Lily: When we were shooting with Valérie [Sadoun] at the store, she was wearing her Ballet Mary Janes with jeans and photographing, and I think for both of us, she evoked this kind of empowered beauty, sexiness and purposefulness. This hopefully epitomises the brand, and was how we saw it from the beginning: shoes that could be functional in life, could convey a sense of craft, and also give the wearer the opportunity to imbue them with their own attitude. 

Simon: Perhaps a lot of people took a while to see flats as sexy? 

Katya: Oh, they did. But as you said Lily, Valérie in her flats with sporty socks and jeans with a T-shirt – it’s just a strong look for living life. 

Lily: I think, as the collections have gotten more breadth, and there are now more heels, we’ve evolved some of those ideas around sexuality and the act of being sexy. Working with Kim [Sion] on her capsule last year was all based around the idea that Kim had about how everything she wanted to make was about being sexy for yourself; being in great shoes and your underwear at home for example. She really pushed us and actually the boundaries of the brand. Kim is someone who very much believes in the power of the shoe to transform. 

Simon: What’s your favourite question to ask someone else?

Lily: It’s probably ‘What’s your favourite memory?’ Or ‘Who is your hero?’ I’m also interested in whether people are superstitious or not. 

Katya: Whenever my daughter comes back from school, I know that if I just ask her how she is, she is not going to really respond, but if I ask her what feelings did you have or experience today? And then, [I] ask what it was that she thinks made her have those feelings… So, it would be something about feelings – it opens up conversation. 

Simon: And lastly, the question we put to everyone else: how would you define beauty? 

Katya: When you look at something and it really gets under your skin. Or when your heart or internal organs just drop. It’s something that makes you feel. 

Lily: I feel like beauty is almost like a spiritual connection, where things feel elevated and much bigger than you, but you’re still experiencing it. It might be walking around the Kunsthistorisches Museum [in Vienna] or being on a walk and you notice the leaves with a grey sky behind, and all the colour. It’s almost a gnostic sense, a pre-knowing. It’s really hard to explain but perhaps as Katya says, it’s mostly about a sense of deep intense feeling.