Shoes. Know them, love them, need them. Roger Vivier’s shoes designed to go with Christian Dior’s couture creations? Now that’s a whole other level of fabulosity, we’re absolutely ready for. Between 1953 and 1963, the full Dior look wasn’t complete without a jewel of a heel designed by the French master cordwainer. Roger Vivier was a good friend of Monsieur Dior, and so was trusted with being part of the greater vision of a (then) modern female silhouette. Even after Dior’s death, as Yves Saint Laurent took the reigns, Vivier continued creating the shoes for the house, drastically innovating classic shapes of both the shoe and the heel as well as adding embellishments to the form. In 1961, Marc Bohan succeeded Laurent and yet again, Roger Vivier put his own stamp on this new vision – an architectural five-centimetre heel that brought a very radical look to the stage. The collaboration ended in 1963, after ten (!!) years of sheer fabulosity and great innovation that’s been influencing the world of shoes up until today.
That truly masterful decade is now being pressed into a grand coffee table piece of literature published by Rizzoli, simply titled Dior by Roger Vivier. Looking at the heritage created within the joining of these two individual brands, the book captures what was possibly one of the first iterations of brand collabs as we know them today. Bound in hardback and filled with rhapsodic imagery, this one will definitely end up one our Christmas wishlists.
‘Dior by Roger Vivier’ is out on November 27th, available to buy online and in selected stores. Images by Gérard Uféras.
Evening pump in velvet, low heel, 1960. Christian Dior by Roger Vivier. The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, New York.
Evening pumps in satin, New Style heel, 1962. Christian Dior by Roger Vivier. The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, New York.
Evening pump in velvet, low heel, 1960. Christian Dior by Roger Vivier. The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, New York.
Indien pump in canvas, heel of small plastic balls, 1955. Christian Dior by Roger Vivier. The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, New York.