Collection of Melissa Leventon: Five Iconic 20th Century Shoe Designers and Historical Moments and Style Revivals
I teach the history of fashion to undergraduate design and fine art students, and I often try to illustrate for my students the recurring cycles of fashion revival by using my collection in class. I have thus focused some of my collecting to concentrate in this arena.
Five Iconic 20th Century Shoe Designers
Top riser, L-R:
Evening Pump, ca. 1958, Roger Vivier (1907-1998), for Christian Dior, French, Silk, leather
Roger Vivier, who opened his first Paris shop in 1937, also sold designs to couturiers and other shoemakers. He left France during World War II but returned post-war and reopened. In 1953, Vivier agreed to design and make a line of ready-to-wear shoes for Christian Dior. This decade- long arrangement produced shoes labeled, like this one, “Christian Dior crée par Roger Vivier” (Christian Dior created by Roger Vivier); Vivier was thus the first shoe designer to get equal billing with a couturier.
Pump,1967, Beth Levine (1914-2006) for Herbert Levine, American, Velvet, leather, vinylite, and rhinestones
Beth Levine was the designer behind Herbert Levine, Inc. (active 1948-1975), one of the few women to have a successful design career in the male-dominated shoe industry. A number of her 1950s and 1960s designs explore ways of making a shoe invisible; although this one is not as extreme as her “topless” shoe (a sole glued onto the foot), its clear quarters give the viewer the impression that it is a mule, not a loafer.
Evening Shoe, Ferragamo (active 1927-present), Italian, Late 1960s, Leather, silk
Salvatore Ferragamo got his start in California in the late ‘teens, making shoes for the movies. He moved his business back to Italy in 1927, and began experimenting with unusual shapes and materials in the 1930s. After his death in 1960, the company continued under family control with his daughter Fiamma as design director. This shoe, designed during her tenure, is essentially a loafer dressed up with an unusual heel and rich materials.
Sport Shoe, André Perugia (1893-1977), French, 1940, Leather, cotton
André Perugia opened his bespoke shoe boutique in 1921 while also designing shoes forprominent Paris couturiers and shoe manufacturers such as I. Miller and Rayne. His ready-to-wear Padova label was launched in 1933 and was sold in the U.S. through Saks Fifth Avenue. This sporty Padova shoe was advertised as a “panchromatic pantoufle” in the May 1, 1940 edition of Vogue magazine. I love Perugia’s work but I especially cherish these because they were given to me by the late Gaza Bowen, whose own work appears elsewhere in the exhibition.
[Behind Sport Shoe] Sandal, Early-mid 1950s, I. Miller (active ca. 1880-1980), American, “Lizagator” (snakeskin), leather
I. Miller, initially a shoe supplier to New York’s theater industry, expanded into fashion footwear, in 1929. The company augmented its in-house-designed shoes with designs purchased from notables André Perugia, David Evins, and others. Reptile shoes were popular in the 1950s and this sexy sandal, with its peek-a-boo mid-toe cutout, was made of “Lizagator,” I. Miller’s trademark name for “alligator-lizard,” which appears to have been snakeskin processed to resemble alligator. Lizagator shoes were more expensive than plain leather ones but cheaper than genuine alligator.
Historical Moments and Style Revivals
L-R:
Single-Strap Shoe (Mary Jane), 1963-65, Roger Vivier (1907-1998), French Silk, leather
The narrow, rounded toe, straps, and side openings of the 1920s and 1930s here are paired with a stacked leather heel and a gray and white silk houndstooth upper. Both the shoe styles and the silhouette and short dresses of the 1920s were reinvented in the 1960s.
T-Strap Shoe, Late 1920s-early 1930s, Holly-Vogue, American, Leather, suede, cotton
Straps—single, double, T, Y, and others, dominated shoe design of the 1920s and early 1930s and have also recurred in shoe design regularly since then.
Mule, Ferragamo (active 1927-present), 1997, Italian, Suede
This shoe first appeared in Ferragamo’s line in 1954-55 under the name “Pantia.” The company, which has maintained its design archive, reissued it in 1997 with slight modifications and different colors—so it is essentially a revival of itself.
Single-Strap Shoe (Mary Jane), Early-mid 2000s, Alexander McQueen (house founded 1992), English, Suede, patent leather
McQueen’s recent iteration of a classic 1920s shoe pairs an Art Deco-style black-and-white upper with an extra-wide instep strap and a contemporary straight stiletto heel.
D’Orsay Pump, ca. 2012, KORS Michael Kors (line active 2004-present), American, Patent leather, metal
Since the 1970s Western fashion has been in a near-continuous cycle of revival and the styles, of the1940s have reappeared several times. This modern version of the cutout wedge used in, the Ted Saval sandal highlights the heel opening with gold metal.
Sandal, ca. 1948, Ted Saval (1890-1958), American, Suede, metal
Shoe designers in the 1940s often used cutouts to lighten the heavy wedge heels and platform soles of the era. Here, Ted Saval, a Los-Angeles-based designer, also used what look like snaps as decorative devices on the vamp strap, echoing the make-do mindset of the World War II years.
Oxford, mid-late 1940s, Barratt’s (active 1903-2013), British, Leather and imitation leather
I often buy shoes that illuminate specific moments in history. These, purchased in London, were made under the World War II British “Utility” clothing rationing scheme (in force 1941- 1949). The Utility regulations rationed the type and amount of material that could be used in clothes and accessories and restricted manufacturers’ profits to prevent price gouging. Clothing that conformed to the scheme was labeled “CC41” (the CC stood for “Civilian Clothing”). This is well-worn and has been resoled and re-heeled, attesting to both the good quality of its materials used and the need to make clothes last as long as possible during the war.
