NYLON Magazine - September 2007 - (Page 86) IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK Though Cheyenne Morris’s two-year-old shoe label is named Tashkent (after the Uzbekistani capital where her grandmother was born), Morris actually resides a lot closer to our home, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “And it’s actually Williamsburg,” she says with a half-joking grin, alluding to the duplicitous tendency of the city’s real estate brokers to refer to the outskirts of the area—say Bushwick—as Williamsburg. Indeed, the old-school, turn-of-the-century townhouse that the cobbler shares with her fashion photographer husband, Greg Morris, is nestled in the heart of Williamsburg, on a primarily commercial stretch of South 1st Street across from one the neighborhood’s most iconic—and endangered— landmarks, the Domino Sugar Factory. Built in 1910, the brownstone boasts rustic, low, wood-beamed ceilings, open fireplaces, and a lush, untamed garden. Morris, 27, works from a sprawling office inside her house, to which she moved within months of launching the Tashkent label, which is known for its fierce gladiator sandals, lamb fur-lined wedge boots, and ballet flats tweaked with tough, metal toe-plates. “My home and work are inextricably linked. I spend hours in my office, because sometimes the outside world, New York City, is so overwhelming. There are spray-painted buildings, crazily dressed pedestrians, and loud billboards. You CHEYENNE MORRIS HAS BUILT A CUTTING-EDGE FOOTWEAR LABEL FROM THE GROUND UP, BUT HER INTIMATE BROOKLYN TOWNHOUSE IS OLDER THAN YOUR GRANNY’S VINTAGE FERRAGAMOS. BY JENNY FELDMAN. PHOTOGRAPHED BY VORRASI From top: Tashkent shoes in front of Morris’s fireplace; the designer in her garden; the kitchen; a view of the living room; shoe forms in Morris’s office nesting stylist: sofia hedsttröm. morris wears a dress by alexander wang, boots by tashkent.
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