Pumps

Roger Vivier|House of Dior

ca. 1960 · leather · Costume Institute

Roger Vivier is one of the most revered shoe designers of the 20th century. Beginning his career in the late 1920s, Vivier designed for many of the top manufacturers of Europe and the United States, including Pinet, Bally, Rayne, Salamander, and Delman before rising to the height of fame for his designs for Christian Dior from 1953 to 1963. He continued to design into the 1990s both under his own label and for numerous couture designers, including Saint Laurent, Grès, Ungaro, and Balmain. Vivier is most noted for his innovative toe and heel shapes, the supreme elegance and harmony of his designs, his sometimes subtle but inventive and highly refined details, and for his conception of footwear as integral to fashion. Vivier's clean, elegant lines are particularly in evidence in this design. The inventive trim, refined vamp treatment suggesting a toe cap, and appealing, graphic black and white contrast of the upper and sole are classic touches of the master designer.

Artist

Roger Vivier|House of Dior

Date

ca. 1960

Medium

leather

Culture

French

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Germaine Cromwell and Patricia Webb, 1978