Fate has always sent clear signals to Gerardo Felloni (Arezzo, Italy, 45 years old). Another thing is that he recognized them late. Filoni believes that his mission since 2018, which is to lead the creative direction of the famous French house Roger Vivier, was revealed to him when he was nineteen years old when he was to be interviewed for another position. While waiting, he picked up a book from the table to entertain himself, opened it at random, and there, clearly, was the sign: a full-page pink shoe design by Roger Vivier (1907-1998) in the 1960s.
Nearly a decade later, he became Filoni, a tenor and a lover traviata, Who started as a copy-making apprentice at Prada, became the French house’s third creative director, replacing Bruno Frisoni, who spent 16 years at Prada. Maison. For the son of a Tuscan shoemaker, assuming the position of the most innovative shoemaker of the 20th century was more than just a dream come true, it had to be something else, i.e. destiny.
Roger Vivier lived a long life, dying at the age of 91 and never stopping being a revolutionary, as in the same decade he was able to invent the high-heeled shoe (1953), the satin pump with removable heel designed for Marlene Dietrich (1955) and high-heeled shoes. virgin (1963), a comma-shaped heel, was designed in collaboration with an aeronautical engineer to change the paradigm of elegant women’s shoes. After all, in 1965, he brought down the bourgeoisie from above with square buckle shoes with a three-centimeter heel, inspired by men’s shoes from the 18th century, which were first seen alongside a Yves Saint Laurent Mondrian dress at Fashion Week that year, and which later went down forever in history on the feet of Catherine Deneuve in Belle today (1967), a film by Luis Buñuel. Since then, this model has been called Belle Vivier. According to the Paris edition of the magazine vogue magazine, In December 1967, that monk’s shoes had been on a waiting list for several months.
In addition, Vivier designed custom-made coronation shoes for Elizabeth II of England, dressed Liz Taylor’s feet and Brigitte Bardot’s feet in knee-high boots, made printed ankle boots for photographer Cecil Beaton, and shoes for Cary Grant and John Lennon. A few months ago, Jonathan Anderson’s first women’s collection for Dior reinterpreted Vivier’s designs as a contemporary tribute to the designer’s long collaboration with Christian Dior. His shoes are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fashion in Paris.
Well, Filoni is willing to live with that legend, and with the talent and energy of Roger Vivier. The brand, owned by Tod’s Group since 2015, has just opened Maison Vivier in Paris, a hotel Private hotel (as urban luxury houses are called in France) from the 18th century in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where the tastes, creative world and intimacy of the designer are reproduced. Her friend and Maison ambassador, Inès de la Fressange, with her own office in the new headquarters, helped decorate the living room according to her memories of Vivier’s Parisian apartment, where she had stayed several times. The result is a combination of sumptuous Louis XVI-style furniture with Asian carvings, African masks and ethnic rugs. The house’s clients will be waiting on the crisp white sofas, and if ghosts are present, so will Vivier’s energies.
In the basement of the palace is the La Salle des Archives, where 270 of the approximately 1,000 shoes made by Vivier are kept. Conservation conditions are strict, temperature 20 degrees and humidity 50%. The shoes are kept in specially made gray cloth boxes. It is the only area where photography is not allowed. The oldest piece dates back to 1955.
Among the luxuries of Vivier’s new home, Filoni mentions having these files only a few minutes away. “About 10 steps, I’d say.” All you have to do is go down some stairs, ask for permission, and touch whatever you want. “It’s a physical closeness, it’s real. I think Vivier deserved to have a place like this in Paris, where his legacy was cared for and documented every day. Personally, I discovered many sketches and sketches that were previously misplaced and hidden because there were so many unclassified documents. Organizing the archive has been an amazing job.” In the refrigerated room are the anise-colored silk slippers embroidered with pearls that Jeanne Moreau wore in the film Catherine the Great (1968) and the 1962 prototype embroidered with silver thread and topaz, were created for Princess Soraya of Iran. In their day they were the most expensive shoes in the world. the house He restored it in 2011 at auction. “For me, it’s still amazing that it’s all so close because they’re pieces I’ve only seen in books.”
For Filoni, his relationship with the Vivier archive is a “strange” one. “I don’t usually look like much. When you have an old shoe in your hand, it’s really hard to make it fit the life you have today. I think you shouldn’t try to replicate a piece made by a genius from the past, you just have to feel that emotion and work with the same attitude, but never make a literal copy because lives have changed, especially women’s lives. The Belle Vivier was a great innovation in the 1960s, it was a comfortable shoe.” casual, But not anymore, now they are stylish shoes because women dress differently. “What I have to echo is Mr. Vivier’s curiosity, to ask myself the same question again: What do women need?” The first shoe Filoni designed for the house was a pair of flip-flops, then he rounded out the massive heel. “But my shoes are not the shoes that Vivier created in the 1960s, nor the shoes that Bruno Frizoni created in the 1990s. It is different because everything changes, including the shapes of women and their feet.”
Its mission is to ensure that Roger Vivier does not become a museum, and that young people have the perception that the famous brand can also be modern and contemporary. “We can look like a classic brand, but it depends on the place. I would say Belle Vivier is an iconic shoe in Paris because your grandmother and your mother also wore them, so that’s why you want to buy some, maybe in another colour, but in Asia the perception is very new because Belle Vivier there is new and Roger Vivier is not seen as a French house, but as a global brand.” Filoni didn’t touch much on the model, “I’ve removed it here and there, but it’s basically still the same Catherine Deneuve shoe. I see young people buying these shoes, and they somehow know that they are taking home an icon, even if they don’t have the exact reference. That’s one of the reasons why Maison Vivier also houses a museum of all the designer’s documented creations.”
Why are comfortable shoes still a rare bird in fashion? Filoni settles back in his chair to answer: “I come from a family with a tradition of shoe making, and I always say that as a designer, the last thing is the only thing that matters, it’s the starting point, but the majority don’t think like me. Shoes are not like a coat that can be adjusted to fit better. When a shoe is uncomfortable, it is from the first two minutes, and there is no solution to that. I realize that there is a margin of choice, and sometimes there are those who prefer the look.” sexual It has to be good, and it has to be said clearly: 12cm heels will never be easy to wear, but it is true that they add elegance to the silhouette and have a moment of their own. I also believe that when a woman is comfortable, the shoe looks nicer, and when she isn’t, the shoe doesn’t quite work. “But I come from a family that has been at this all my life.”
Filoni’s father had a shoe factory and his mother was the company’s guinea pig, trying them all on for several days before putting them up for sale. So he has family secrets and tricks, he knows the sizes and dimensions, the space in which the foot breathes, and he is not a great defender of… dagger Nor very high heels. “I’m not as obsessed with that as other designers, and I think I also agree with Mr. Vivier. In his archives, the height of high heels is nine centimetres, and there are not many, almost all of his designs were high heels.” “cat heel” (The wise heel, as they say now).
By the way, in the new archive of the Maison Vivier Filoni, he was able to touch the mysterious sign of fate with his own hands at the age of nineteen. The pink shoes that accidentally appear in this book are the first virgin Fuchsias created by Roger Vivier in 1963. Now you can go down the stairs and see them up close whenever you want.