South Street’s Bus Stop Boutique releases a shoe collaboration with Taiwanese footwear brand All Black.
Bus Stop X Ground features spiffy spectator oxfords, block heel strappy sandals, mule sandals, and thick-soled lace-ups that has the city’s shoe aficionados buzzing.
It’s a busy spring for Bus Stop Boutique owner, Elena Brennan.
She’s celebrating her South Street shoe store’s 16th birthday and launching her 16th Bus Stop X collection. Her new book, Fab Collab: How Women Create Success, is being released on May 22. It’s a business manual Brennan wrote with women entrepreneurs from around the globe including Bonny Snowdon, a North Berkshire-based colored pencil artist and Lorraine Thomas, a British commercial real estate developer.
However, it’s Brennan’s Bus Stop X Ground that has the city’s shoe aficionados buzzing. Think spiffy spectator oxfords, block heeled strappy sandals, mule sandals, and thick-soled lace-ups. The collection, called Ground, features 19 styles and is Brennan’s largest to date. Bus Stop X is a collaboration between Bus Stop and the Taiwanese footwear brand All Black.
“What we wear on our feet connects us to the Earth,” Brennan said. “With everything we’ve gone through we need to reconnect and get grounded so we can feel calm.”
Available in sizes 38 to 42, the shoes in Bus Stop X Ground are named after hues found in nature. A red and gray suede sandal is called Lava and a creamy lace-up, Moon. A white and tan strappy sandal is named Terrain; its sister shoe in blue and white is Rain. Each pair is $295.
Brennan launched the first Bus Stop X in 2015, when it was rare for an independent shoe boutique to boast a private label collection. It still is. Brennan’s first Bus Stop X grouping was inspired by old Hollywood; the slip-on oxfords were named Zsa Zsa, Audrey, and Grace after Princess Grace Kelly.
The collections since the start of the pandemic reflect Brennan’s changing view of the world. Last year’s collection, which featured orange and red, teal and mint, and banana yellow shoes, made a statement about the need for a cheery mood. In 2021, Bus Stop X featured faux, snakeskin shoes called Anew as we shed our old lives and entered a new normal.
“We seek solace in nature and comfort in our shoes,” Brennan said. “Our shoes ground us.”
Bus Stop Boutique is located at 727 S. Fourth St., Philadelphia.