Rizzoli has delivered a compelling new release with Roger Vivier: Heritage and Imagination, a monograph that transcends the typical coffee table fare to offer something genuinely substantive. The timing couldn’t be more poetic: the book’s arrival beautifully coincides with the inauguration of Maison Vivier, the newly opened Paris headquarters that celebrates the striking archive and storied history of one of footwear’s most inventive minds.
More Than a Retrospective
What distinguishes this volume from previous Roger Vivier publications is its refusal to simply catalog. Curated by Elizabeth Semmelhack, Director and Senior Curator of the Bata Shoe Museum, the book abandons conventional chronology in favor of five thematic “Salons”: Le Salon de l’Héritage, Le Salon des Formes, Le Salon de l’Ornement, Le Salon de la Célébrité, and Le Salon de l’Imaginaire. Inspired by the intellectual salons of eighteenth-century Paris, these chapters function as spaces of conversation where ideas, images, and reflections intersect freely across time, disciplines, and sensibilities.
SHOE STORIES ON DSCENE
The structure proves remarkably effective. Rather than marching through decades, the book allows Vivier’s radical approach to form, ornament, and proportion to breathe and resonate with contemporary discourse.
An Extraordinary Constellation of Voices
The contributor list reads like a who’s who of cultural authority. Global Brand Ambassador Ines de la Fressange anchors the conversation alongside actresses Catherine Deneuve, Isabella Rossellini, Michelle Yeoh, Eva Green, Laura Dern, Cher, and Christina Ricci, women whose careers have been shaped, in part, by the transformative power of footwear as performance and self-expression.
Writers and cultural commentators including Suzy Menkes, Carol Woolton, Anne-Sophie von Claer, and Violette d’Urso provide critical context, while artists and image-makers like Nicolas Party and costume designer Ellen Mirojnick illuminate how Vivier’s visual language continues to inform contemporary luxury and creative authorship.
Archival Revelations
Drawing on recently disclosed archival material, including original sketches, prototypes, photographs, and documents, the book reveals Monsieur Vivier as both craftsman and philosopher. These historical materials, many published for the first time, demonstrate a designer whose intellectual rigor matched his aesthetic ambition. The decision to open these archives to the public, both physically at Maison Vivier and through this publication, represents an act of cultural generosity that positions heritage as collective resource rather than private treasure.
Living Grammar
Under the creative direction of Gherardo Felloni, the book makes clear that Vivier’s legacy is not a closed chapter but a living grammar, constantly reinterpreted with freedom, emotion, and contemporary relevance. The dialogue between past and present, intellect and imagination, discipline and joie de vivre, pulses through every page.
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Roger Vivier: Heritage and Imagination succeeds as both intellectual and sensorial object, affirming the Maison’s commitment to culture as a form of generosity. For students, designers, curators, and anyone interested in fashion as cultural language, this is essential reading.
Available now. Distributed online and in libraries worldwide.
