Carlos Falchi Vintage F Studio Ladies Luxury Heels (NWOT)

Carlos Antonio Perreira was born on Sept. 26, 1944, in Belo Horizonte, a city in southeastern Brazil. (He adopted the surname Falchi — his mother’s maiden name — after he began his career in the fashion industry, where it behooved one to have an Italian name. As a youth, Carlos attended military school and worked for the post office in Rio de Janeiro, where he parlayed his artistic ability into designing stamps. After moving to New York in the mid-1960s, he found work as a busboy at Max’s Kansas City, the storied nightclub on Park Avenue South, above Union Square. By day he made his own clothes from diverse scraps of leather — a technique born of necessity, as it wasted almost nothing. At night, his outfits caught the eye of Max’s habitués, who became his first clients. “People would say, ‘Where did you get that jacket with all those fringes everywhere?’ ” Mr. Falchi recalled in a 2011 interview with W magazine. “And I would say, ‘I made it!’ ” In the ’70s, hoping to interest Bendel in his clothes, Mr. Falchi put several garments into a bag of his own design and took them to the store. “They loved the pants, they loved the jacket, but they especially loved the bag,” he told Newsweek in 2002 His laurels include a lifetime achievement award from the Accessories Council and a Coty Award If the relaxed aesthetic of Mr. Falchi’s bags seemed to run counter to Gotham’s edgy sensibilities, he was quick to assure people that a little bit of Manhattan, was sewn in with every stitch.