You met Haitian American designer Sybille Guichard of SybG back in August as she detailed her battle with Crohn’s Disease and how she launched her rising shoe brand from her hospital bed. Now, she’s back to tell us how her partnership with the Fashion Bomb Daily Shop has projected her brand to new heights along with details on her design process, a new colorway for her popular On A Pedestal shoe, what’s next for the brand in 2021 and more.
Since joining the Fashion Bomb Daily Shop last year, Sybille Guichard and her SybG brand have been met with immense success. She was recently invited to two exclusive events including stylist Jeremy Haynes‘s 35th James Bond-themed birthday bash and the Secret Society pajama-themed movie premiere. She articulated how both events were fun and exciting filled with great networking opportunities and stylish familiar faces like Toya Johnson, Reginae Carter and Kandi Burruss to name a few. She also expressed how fulfilling it was to be recognized as a designer in media outlets like the Daily Mail. For both events, she wore pieces from SybG including the Perfect Match heels in both black and blue as well as jewelry.
She expresses, “Business has been great and really growing at a fast pace. Partnering with Fashion Bomb Daily, they are able to reach so many people from regular readers to stylists and celebrities. They are able to reach demographic of people I probably would’ve taken a lot longer to reach on my own. So, I am super thankful.”
SybG shoes have been an absolute hit amongst our shoppers. In fact, her “On A Pedestal” shoes have become a fan-favorite, selling out twice. Sybille shared with us that she intended to actually ditch the shoe due to its complex design (wearers are asked to size up due its small-sized run). However, the two-strap heeled sandal became in high demand during the inception of the partnership, so she brought the shoe back just for us.
Now, the shoe you know and love is being offered in a new colorway: red. Sybille Guichard goes into the detail on the shoes’s design elements: “The sexy red makes for the perfect pop of color. There’s also the matte snakeskin and black shadowing in between the cracks of the snakeskin. Then, you have the chrome at the bottom of the heels that adds to the combination of textures and fabrics to give the shoe dimension.“
In less than a year, SybG has also expanded its product selections bringing jewelry into the mix. As a huge lover of costume jewelry since high school, this inclusion serves as a further representation of Sybille Guichard. She explains, “If I can give women the look they’re going for with nice costume jewelry, I will do so. I want to show that you can still look fly with your costume jewelry.” Angela Simmons and Althea Heart have both been spotted in the SybG’s jewelry recently.
With the brand named after her, Sybille Guichard’s presence and story is felt in each aspect and item of SybG. As a Haitian American, she makes sure to “put on for her people” as a first generation American in her family who didn’t take the traditional healthcare path. She truly loves the fashion industry and the fact she can represent for Haiti. Also posing as a painter and art lover, her eye for asymmetry and unlikeness heavily influences her design process when it comes to her trendy shoes.
She shares: “Everything I start, I start while I’m in the hospital. I would be in the hospital for months at a time which allowed me time to sit down and heal. In 2015, I was hospitalized for months when a friend asked what I needed. I asked her to go to Walmart and get me a few bottles of paint and bring my canvas from home. I’ve always been a sketcher, but I had never painted. I had sketched a self-portrait and my friend encouraged me to paint it…it turned out amazing. I started taking little things around the hospital like tissue paper, stickers, gauze squares, and bandaids, putting them on canvas, adding texture and a story to the pieces. My whole hospital room turned into an art gallery, nurses would come into my room and bring other nurses to see my pieces. Some even bought my artwork. When I got better, I got involved with art shows and commissioned pieces.“
When it came to her artwork, Guichard has always enjoyed the use of mix media and uneven lines and shapes which she says essentially describes her as a person. She references yin and yang, opposites that match or attract, describing herself in two parts: one part is fun and artsy while the other is sick and stagnant. Altogether, you get Sybille Guichard and thus her shoes.
The individual yet universal theme follows her design process as well with each set of shoes flaunting mix-matching details. For example, the Perfect Match sandals has different color straps, one strap is yellow while the other is pink. Even when you think your pair of SybG shoes are the same, they aren’t. Each sandal presents separate symbols on the bottom of each shoe as one may carry the ribbon for Crohn’s disease while the other dons the SybG logo. She explains, “I don’t make anything even. I like the flow of not flowing. It’s always been my thing.“
When discussing her personal favorite SybG shoe, she goes with the Perfect Match. She explains why: “The Perfect Match was my first shoe, my baby. It’s what started the brand, so it will always have a close love in my heart.“
As far as the second half of 2021, SybG plans to work on dropping more shoes in different styles. She also mentioned that collaborations are in the works as well as more jewelry. In all, she said the rest of the year will essentially consist of “more SybG”.
Discover more from SybG on Fashion Bomb Daily Shop!
Photography: @di_photograph and @googleishuman
