I met Matt Bernson and his small team in his cozy office that doubles as a showroom in the Tribeca section of New York City on a day that I swear was no more than 1 degree outside. Luckily, the warmth of the space was augmented by the warmth of the greetings from the designer himself, his staff, and his very adorable dog Abe.

Matt certainly stood out in the middle of a New York winter; his handsome features were well tanned from a recent trip to Africa, and he possessed a decidedly un-New York City-ish laid back demeanor that one might place as belonging to a down-to-earth California guy.

Matt Bernson is not actually from California, but perhaps there is something to this vibe after all. His shoes, especially the gladiators, have been made famous by countless celebrities and starlets in the LA area and beyond whose pictures pepper the glossy pages of magazines across the country. This virtual takeover of Hollywood's most fashionable feet can probably be attributed in no small part to the fact that Matt focuses so hard on creating footwear that is not only incredibly comfortable, but his shoes also manage to impart an almost indie, bohemian style…but without any pretentiousness. Plus, they just look damn good.

While it may come as a surprise to some, or vindication to others that it's never too late to follow one's dreams, Matt's life leading up to starting his own footwear company began on a completely different path. After graduating from Indiana University with a Business Finance degree, he decided to eschew the typical path of becoming an Investment Banker or Financier and instead he "took a little time off". This included working at a tennis club in New Orleans and was followed by working as a laborer in construction in NYC. So where did the shoes come in?

RWH:  Matt, can you tell us a little bit how you got into designing shoes in the first place?

Matt Bernson: During this time [working in construction] I took a trip to India to see a ten day talk that the Dali Lama was giving in the north of India, and…I found a sandal as a gift for my then girlfriend, now wife.

We actually pulled it out recently to look at it. It's not the most amazing shoe. At the time the guy [selling it] thought it was such a great item and gift. And it was; it was a handmade, very cool sandal and something in it sparked an idea. I saw them making things in India and I thought it might be an interesting place to…get something started. So it was somewhat on a whim.

I still had my job in construction, [but] I found the factories online and sent designs, and the sandals came back and it was somewhat of a thrill to see that whole process happen and happen rather quickly. So at that point, I decided to see if I could actually get a small collection of shoes together. My mom's a jewelry designer so we took her antique Indian jewelry necklaces, got some reproduced, and put them on a flip flop with a padded insole…the idea really was to make comfortable, interesting, simple flip flops.

It was something that hit a nerve at the time. Indian design and styling was something that was going on in 2005, so a few stores picked it up and then it started from there. Definitely [the current line] has taken a drastic change from the initial concept, but still simple, comfortable, very wearable and somewhat classic styling was what the original line was based on.

RWH: A lot of care goes into how your shoes are made…can you share with us some of the details?

MB: From the very beginning I knew pretty much nothing about making shoes, so I learned. I was in India for months on end…just sitting in the factories learning from the people there. [The] interesting part of what was going on was the actual making of [the shoes]: who was making them, how they're making them, and what went into it…It made a huge impact because now I'm a percentage owner in the factory that makes my shoes.

The people who make [the shoes] are extremely important. [They are] craftsman who have been doing this for 25 years. Everyone from the person that finishes the sole to the insole to lasting the shoe to making the upper…every person that makes every component is a very studied craftsman who's done this for a very long time. I think it makes a huge difference in not only the first prototype that we make but all of the production that we do.

(It probably won't come as any surprise at this point that Matt actually has an incredibly large amount of involvement at every point in the process from creation to completion all the way down to the final and crucial step of selling his shoes to the customer. He concerns himself with everything from finding materials to generating financing to planning the distribution and shipping of his shoes. Does the man have even have time to design?)

RWH: What's been your favorite part of being a designer?

MB: Every single part of it is interesting…I'm never doing just one thing for one day [and] a very small percentage of my time will actually be sitting down with a pen and paper and creating. Designing on site in Brazil is the way I happen to like to do it. Sitting down with the materials, changing the shape with the pen on the actual sandal and last and making changes that way. It's a very fun activity, but I go to every single show, every single store; [I make] in-store visits to make sure salespeople know about the product…I have involvement [in every aspect] at this point. It's all very very engaging, and I guess the fun part is hoping that it all goes well.

When individual people actually buy this shoe and like it…it's extremely satisfying and very mind blowing!

RWH: Which brings us to the new spring line which looks fantastic and is called ‘Sex and Comfort', right?

MB: It's kind of a tagline we've been working with…Bruce, who does our sales, it just kind of sprung out of him at some point. We made it a tagline because it really embodies something that we realized the sandals just seem to have. We're hearing from so many people that they love the look of [a sandal] and they try it on and it's really the comfort that makes them HAVE buy it.

RWH: And which of the spring shoes would you pick as the styles no girl should be without? Do you have one that you'd personally love to see take off?

MB: My baby is one that took a lot of convincing for everyone else to like but which I think is gonna be the sleeper hit of the season. It's called the Petre. It's actually based on a native sandal from Minorca…I made some changes and updates – what I thought might be interesting – [and now] it's definitely a beach-weekend, very unpretentious run-around-town type sandal.

As far as great sandals for the season which I think will be the hits: the Barracuda in brown and silver…[and] kind of a superhero-chic look called the Flash - it's really comfortable, it zips on, zips off and it's definitely more fashion forward. It makes a statement but is very wearable.

RWH: We're expecting some wedge heels to debut in the spring collection as well – was it a hard decision to add some height?

MB: There were a few styles that it made perfect sense to make a medium high wedge and then a high wedge so there are two heights [in the spring collection].

The hard decision was just that we wanted to make sure that anything we did in a heel also had the same comfort and wearability that our flat sandals had…it just took a little time to get it to where we wanted to sell it. [The wedge has] a padded insole, it also can get wet and still survive, [and] it has flexibility in the actual wedge part.

RWH: So last but not least, admittedly it's a little early to be thinking about fall, but what can we look forward to?

MB: What we're doing for Fall is taking a motorcycle-ish boot look and applying it to a ballet flat, a heel, a peep toe heel, an actual motorcycle boot and riding boot and weaving this theme throughout. And then there are a few treatments we're gonna be using – ornamentation [like] hexagon style grommets (with my construction background I thought it was kind of cool) and some pyramid studs that we'll actually cover with leather.

We're definitely adding a heel [and] very covered shoes, which is different than what we've done in the past. We're still also coming up with new sandal styles for the winter…so it will be about half very fall looking and then half new additions in sandals.

Because we know you're dying to…visit the Matt Bernson Spring collection today at www.MattBernson.com to scope out all the new shoes.

A sincere 'thank you' to Matt Bernson and crew from Running With Heels for sharing their time with us.