When Alessandra Gold was operating boutiques in Providence, she discovered what she believed to be a missing link in the fashion world: Designer shoes that were a cut above the “cheap” variety mass produced for department stores but priced well below the Givenchys and Louis Vuittons that cost $1,000 and more.

So Gold, who was born in Brazil, which is a leading exporters of shoes and leather goods, and who was trained at the Fashion Institute of New York, decided to create her own line of footwear known as Goka Design.

They’re already making a splash in the fashion world, where her designs have been featured on models in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition last year and in the Bowery boutique owned by Patricia Field, costume designer for Sex and the City and movies like The Devil Wears Prada.

“I don’t make anything basic,” Gold said, in a recent interview from her office and studio in the basement of her spacious home in the Oak Hill neighborhood of Pawtucket. “When people buy high-quality shoes, they’re looking for the design. They’re looking for something more than a shoe. They’re looking for something exclusive on their feet.”

Goka Design promotes that exclusivity with its line of hand-made shoes, bags and belts that are sold in select boutiques around the country, as well as Canada, Europe and Japan, Gold said. “We get calls from places I didn’t even know existed on the map,” she said.

She recently promoted her new line at Fashion Week in New York, and then headed to Las Vegas to show at the Pool Trade Show for boutique owners there.

“Alessandra has a very unique, fun shoe collection that I think fits well in today’s contemporary market. The fit is very comfy and the designs avant-garde,” said Carmelita Martell, a fashion designer based in Miami.

“I’ve received a significant amount of compliments when wearing her diverse styles,” Martell said. “I’ve also added them to numerous photo shoots and runway shows.” After all, she continued, “accessories (including shoes) help a designer’s vision come together.”

And vision, Gold said, is what makes a shoe design work.

Shoe design is a relatively new pursuit for Gold, who moved to New York from Curitiba, the capital of Parana, Brazil, back in 1991. She took a job as a private banker at the Swiss Bank, while studying apparel and design at the Fashion Institute.

She was 21 at the time, and went back to Brazil after graduating, but returned to the states several years later. While visiting a friend at Brown University, she said, she fell in love with Rhode Island and decided to settle here.

She opened her first store, Blume, on Transit Street in 2000 and later moved to Wickenden Street in Providence, but closed it in 2003 when she opened a new store, the Red Boutique at Providence Place.

The Red Boutique featured an eclectic line, everything from bikinis tailor-made for Brazilian beaches to elegant gowns for the most exclusive affairs. But she couldn’t seem to find — and therefore couldn’t offer — high-quality designer shoes at an affordable price.

So she decided to make her own.

She named her new venture Goka Designs, which stands for the first two letters of her last name — Gold — as well as the first initials of each of her children, Kevin and Angelina.

She began by traveling to her native Brazil, which is known as one of the top shoe-making countries in the world, to meet with shoemakers there. She wanted them to take her designs and handcraft them into shoes, boots and bags.

She started with a handful of designs and they were such a hit that she was soon traveling to Brazil twice a year for a month or so at a time, to immerse herself in the design and production process.

She’d stop by the factories to see what leathers and other materials were available, and then head off to sketch her designs, and then go back to the shoemakers to arrange for an assortment of styles of sizes that she could bring back home to sell.

People were “very into” the shoe line, Gold recalled. “Whatever the price, people would pay it for very comfortable, very beautiful shoes.”.

Her shoe designs were so unique that they caught the eyes of passersby, who would frequently stop Gold or her customers to ask where they’d bought their shoes.

Gold said she tried to keep them affordable, by pricing them in the $100 to $400 range, as opposed to what she called the “cheap” lines of mass-produced shoes that sell for $40 to $100 or the high-priced ones that start at $300 and go up from there.

More importantly, she said, she wanted her shoes to be distinctive — whether solids or stripes or a patchwork of colors, or adorned with everything from buttons and skulls to 70s-style chunky acrylic heels.

“To me, it’s like art,” Gold said. “…It’s like a piece of jewelry.”

In fact, she designs each shoe as though it’s a piece of jewelry. She told the story of how she came across a giant silver button created by a Brazilian designer, Alexandre Herchcovith, and she thought it would look fabulous on a shoe. Some people thought she was crazy — who’d wear a shoe with a button on it? But she designed this funky “bootie” that’s a combination of black, red and turquoise with the big silver button on the side and a tall, slim stiletto heel, and it’s one of her all-time favorites.

She got her big break in 2005, when she took a suitcase full of shoes to the Pool Trade Show in Las Vegas for the very first time.

“I flew to Vegas with a suitcase full of shoes and a lot of hope,” Gold recalled. She set up a booth and introduced herself to everyone who stopped by — and among those whose eyes she happened to catch were buyers for Field and for the Trash and Vaudeville upscale New York City boutiques.

Gold recalls going to those boutiques when she was a teen, living in New York City, attending the Fashion Institute. “I always thought, maybe someday I’ll be here as a designer.”

And now she is.

Her shoes have a distinctive look and flare — from flats to platforms with acrylic heels, with an interesting mix of leathers and textiles. They quickly caught the eyes of a variety of stylist and designers, and Gold found her footwear being modeled during major fashion shoots — including last year’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition — and being featured in some premiere stores nationwide, including Fields’ store in New York.

And now Gold is showing her wares around the country, at Fashion Week in New York as well as at a variety of other style and design events, including one at Field’s home last winter.

Gold now has about 150 different designs and patterns, from stilettos to platforms and everything in between. They’re all made of fine leather, and lined with leather and silk.

Gold sold the Red Boutique three years ago to focus on Goka Design full-time. Her footwear is now sold in a variety of boutiques and stores nationwide, including Elsa Arms, an exclusive boutique in Providence.

Her designs also are sold in a smattering of boutiques in other countries. And, she sells by appointment from her studio and workshop in the basement of her Oak Hill home in Pawtucket. She also offers a small selection of clothing and jewelry from other designers, who in turn help sell Gold’s footwear as well.

Jessica Hagen, who sells some of the jewelry featured at Gold’s shop at her Jessica Hagen Gallery in Newport, says of Gold’s fashion sense: “She gets it.”

Gold has aligned herself with clothing and jewelry designers who are red-hot in their own right, and that will further Gold’s designs as well, she said. “She’s got her finger on the pulse of what’s going on. She’s really amazing. She really is.”

In fact, Hagen said, she recently saw Gucci’s newest line of platform shoes and immediately realized they looked just like the shoes Goka Design has been producing for years, and she thought: “Oh my God, they’re stealing (Gold’s) designs.”

Gold has a sense of style and fashion that will serve her well, Hagen predicts. “No pun intended, but she’s really in step with everything that’s going on.”

That said, it’s still very much one step at a time, Gold says. Hers is, after all, still a small business. Gold loves being able to work from home, where she lives with her husband, Joshua Gold, a lawyer, and their two children. She has help from Monica Cezario, who used to work at the Red Boutique and followed her to her full-time pursuit of Goka, and Beatriz Melicio, another assistant.

But even though it’s small, Goka Designs has already attracted some big-name attention — including celebrity fashion stylists and costume designers such as Michael Holdaway, who’s worked with celebs including Elizabeth Taylor, Phil Collins and Snoop Dog.

Holdaway, in a recent interview that he was “blown away” when he saw Gold’s booth at the 2005 Pool Trade Show, said: “I learned that the sophisticated, gorgeous and very classy woman who was taking the orders was actually the owner, Alessandra. It all made sense to me. You cannot produce a shoe that is sexy, sophisticated, classy and well made unless you are a designer that possesses those qualities yourself…. Alessandra possesses them all.”

Martell said, "I’ve received a significant amount of compliments when (my models wear) her diverse styles. I’ve also added them to numerous photo shoots and runway shows. Accessories help a designer’s vision come together.”

And to Gold, shoes are nothing short of a major accessory.

She estimates she now sells about 5,000 pair of shoes a year, and she’s only just begun.

Gold says of her success: “It’s amazing. I love it!”

And with all the attention her footwear has received in only three years, she said, “it makes me believe this is it — we’re gonna be huge.”

Holdaway, the fashion stylist and costume designer, agreed — and predicted: “Goka shoes are here to say and will be a household name in the fashion industry. They are original, well-made pieces of art for the foot.”

Goka Designs sells through Elsa Arms in Providence as well as at select boutiques around the country — and around the world.

Alessandra Gold, who founded the company, also sells by appointment from her studio/workshop in Pawtucket. Call (401) 475-7651.