Walk into a church in Naples, Italy, and you might stumble across a Caravaggio or an Artemisia Gentileschi. For Italian shoe designer and collector Ernesto Esposito, that proximity to beauty shaped everything that followed.
“I grew up in Naples, a city where beauty is not confined to museums but is part of everyday life,” Esposito said. “Art came first. Long before becoming a shoe designer, I was already fascinated by beauty, proportions, and the emotional power of objects.”
Esposito began his career in the 1970s with renowned shoemaker Sergio Rossi. His own collections pair classic silhouettes with more daring designs, including towering open-toe heels in leopard-print pony hair and red patent leather.
Over several decades, he has also built an art collection featuring works by Katharina Grosse, Richard Prince, John Baldessari, Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, and George Condo, alongside those by younger painters such as Leonardo Devito and Adam Handler.
For Esposito, collecting is not simply about ownership, taste, or market value. It is a way of living with questions, memories, friendships, and creative risk.
Starting with Warhol
His first acquisition was a limited-edition silkscreen from Warhol’s 1971 “Electric Chair” series.
“I did not choose it because it was fashionable, nor as an investment,” he said. “I bought it because it moved me deeply. It is a work that is at once beautiful, unsettling, and profoundly human.”
That instinct has guided him ever since. “Great art does not provide answers, but instead asks questions that continue to stay with you throughout your life,” he said. “That work defined the direction of my entire collection.”
Growing up amid Naples’s layered history taught Esposito that objects could carry meaning beyond their function. “When I became a designer, I never considered a shoe to be merely a product,” he said. “To me, a shoe is a cultural object, capable of expressing identity, emotion, and creativity.”
He sees a direct connection between art and fashion. “All of my work in fashion has always been guided by the same curiosity and sensitivity that first made me fall in love with art,” he said.
Esposito also resists a simple distinction between craftsman and artist. “Great craftsmen possess artistic sensitivity, while great artists often have extraordinary mastery of technique,” he said. “Excellence is always born from the meeting of imagination and skill.”
Building an art collection of sensibilities
What unifies his collection is not a theme or medium, but a sensibility. “I am drawn to artists who possess an authentic and recognizable language,” he said. “I do not collect a particular style, but rather personalities.”
His approach was shaped in part by the legendary Neapolitan dealer and curator Lucio Amelio. “Meeting Lucio opened an entirely new world to me,” Esposito said. “Through him, I met extraordinary artists and discovered that art does not simply serve to decorate a space, but can change the way we look at and understand reality.”
Collecting, he said, then became “an integral part of the way I live and interpret the world.”
For Esposito, buying art requires conviction. “A true collector is someone who takes responsibility,” he said. “They choose according to their own instinct, not according to market consensus.”
One artist currently holding his attention is De Vito. Esposito admires “the consistency of his research, the quality of his painterly language, and his ability to address contemporary themes without chasing trends.”
Following a young artist’s development, he added, “is one of the most fascinating aspects of collecting.”
Collecting emerging and established artists alongside each other
Little Runner Abduction, 2026
Adam Handler
Trium Art Gallery
He refuses to rank emerging talent against established masters. “The great masters represent the memory and history of art, while emerging artists bring energy, freedom, and unpredictability,” he said.
In a market saturated with spectacle, sincerity still moves him most. “The works that truly stay with us are those still capable of conveying a personal truth,” he said. “Authenticity remains the rarest quality.”
Art’s influence on his footwear is rarely literal. “Sometimes it is a color combination, other times a proportion, or perhaps the courage to make an unexpected decision,” he said. “The influence of art is constant, often unconscious, but always present.”
Designing and collecting may appear to arise from the same impulse, but Esposito experiences them differently. “Designing allows me to create. Collecting allows me to listen,” he said. “When I design, I am the one making decisions. When I collect, I enter into dialogue with someone else’s vision.”
His most recent direct collaboration was a residency with American painter Adam Handler. Handler reminded him of a young Keith Haring, whom Esposito met in New York early in Haring’s career.
“It is not a stylistic comparison,” Esposito said, “but rather the energy, enthusiasm, and total dedication to work that I recognized again in Adam.”
Staged with Trium Art Gallery in Monza, Italy, and Noh-Art, the residency became more than a commission. Esposito credited Naples—its light, history, energy, and openness—with transforming it into “something far deeper than a simple artistic collaboration.”
“The work itself is certainly important, but what truly remains is the experience shared together,” he said. “Artists need places capable of inspiring them, authentic encounters, and human relationships.”
Looking ahead, Esposito imagines future residencies with artists chosen not for their market standing, but for their openness: “an artist capable of being surprised by Naples just as much as Naples could be surprised by them.”
It is from that encounter, he believes, that “the most authentic projects can emerge.”
