I love it when the cre­ative minds behind brands we love open up and tell us about their per­sonal style inter­ests and how they fit into the shoes we love. Recently, Bass shoe designer, Anita Da Silva talked about her love for vin­tage with Lucky Mag­a­zine.

Lucky: How did you start col­lect­ing vintage?

Anita Da Silva: The com­pany I work for had no archive at first, so I just started going on Etsy, eBay and trav­el­ing to all of these amaz­ing flea mar­kets. I found that every city in the world has amaz­ing flea mar­kets, espe­cially in Europe. And it’s funny how there’s so many Bass shoes in Europe, even though it’s an Amer­i­can com­pany. I think that they import them for some rea­son. The Rose­bowl flea mar­ket is amaz­ing, too. I started find­ing really ran­dom stuff like Bass coins and even old cat­a­logs that Bass used to send out. I started col­lect­ing vin­tage ’cause for me it was like, “okay, I’m start­ing to learn more about the her­itage.” That’s how I came to be more in touch with who the cus­tomer was before and how the cus­tomer really progressed.

Lucky: Have you always designed shoes or did you design apparel, too?

Well, I started in apparel. But it’s funny–I don’t know myself as well as my friends know me! My best friend said, “you should go into fash­ion design because you’re obsessed with fash­ion.” And I was like, “What do you mean? No way! I’m going to die of hunger, I’m not going to make money.” And she was like, “No, you should do it. You’re so good.” So I went into fash­ion design and cloth­ing, but I was work­ing the shoe store on the week­ends just to get the discount.

To read the entire inter­view includ­ing Anita’s com­ments on future Bass col­lab­o­ra­tions, click here.

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By JaNea @janeaNOTjane

Edi­tor at Shoed-In Mag­a­zine
JaNea @janeaNOTjane is Shoed-In Magazine’s found­ing edi­tor which means she loves and is well versed in shoes. A for­mer finan­cial adviser, she may occas­sion­ally offer you some unso­licited advice about your money management.