Roger Vivier’s famous Choc Heel as reinterpreted by creative director Gherardo Felloni.
Under creative director Gherardo Felloni, accessories maison Roger Vivier has become as celebrated for its whimsical Paris Fashion Week presentations as its shoes themselves.
For some seasons Vivier has lent on surrealism for such spectacles, which, though utterly imaginative and gloriously entertaining, is not necessarily one of the house fundamentals.
Story telling and creation myths are the life blood of fashion and having a bonafide heritage is what sets brands like Vivier apart from their more contemporary counterparts like your Louboutins, say, which strive to fashion these as they go.
Having founded Roger Vivier in 1937, the eponymous soulier designed for Christian Dior for 10 years from 1953 to 1963 and so, for Fall ‘23 the house pulled focus, scaling back on the surreal and zeroing in on its own enviable roots in haute couture, to which no other shoe brand can genuinely lay claim.
Model’s showcasing Roger Vivier’s couture cuissard boots.
Within the rarified surrounds of a refined Parisian townhouse, it staged a tribute to the couture presentations of the 1950s with its cast both positioned on podiums and sashaying around the venue, a nod to the fit models in the couture houses of that decade.
Showpieces were the dramatic cuissard boots — part boot, part asymmetric ballgown, that is. The left shoe was often draped in a swathe of the same fabric and connected to the waist via a bejewled belt. During his tenure, Felloni, a collector of antique jewelry himself, has also introduced jewelry to the maison as a category in its own right.
Monsieur Vivier was the first shoe designer to translate the techniques and materials of haute couture into the accessories universe via embroidery and draping. The concept perpetuated this legacy — albeit supersized for the social media generation. (A couple of days after attending the presentation, Ciara secured a pair of aforementioned cuissards in cerulean blue satin and posted the result on the social channels.)
The focus was the silhouette they created as much as the shoes themselves. As Felloni said, “Monsieur Vivier changed the allure of women. His creations were designed purely for attitude.” Which is the whole point of a shoe: to enhance the silhouette and transform the whole demeanor of the wearer.
Serenaded by orchestra performing in the vestibule, guests mounted a grand stairway to an upper level where Vivier’s artisans were at work showcasing the craftsmanship that forms the backbone of the house — such as sculpting that famous inverted Choc Heel that Monsieur Vivier first designed in 1959.
The show’s invitation design, a pair of scissors was realized as a giant totemic sculpture — recalling Roger Vivier’s couture heritage, translated anew and reminding all pretenders that it’s the real deal.
The totemic scissors recalling Roger Vivier’s haute couture heritage.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephaniehirschmiller/2023/03/08/how-roger-vivier-reclaimed-its-couture-heritage-with-a-little-help-from-ciara/