My aunt, whom I’m named after, had exquisite taste in fashion. A huge supporter of the theatre, she appreciated the role that fashion played in creating drama—both on and off the stage. When we visited her home, I often made my way to her closet to look at her clothes and shoes. When I was much older, I realized that the shoes I most coveted were a pair—or at least a spectacular imitation—of Roger Vivier’s “pilgrim buckle” shoes. After Catherine Deneuve wore a pair in the 1967 movie Belle de jour, the shoes were renamed in the film’s honour. They went on to become one of the most iconic shoe styles of the ’60s. Everyone from Jacqueline Onassis to Marlene Dietrich were photographed in them.
I hadn’t thought about my Aunt Noreen’s shoes until I attended the Bata Shoe Museum’s opening gala this week for its new show, Roger Vivier: Process to Perfection. Vivier had designed the pilgrim buckle shoes to accompany Yves Saint Laurent’s autumn 1965 collection—in particular, the now iconic Mondrian dress. Several pairs are on display, along with 60-plus other artifacts on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Deutsches Ledermuseum in Germany and Roger Vivier Paris, as well as Bata’s own collection.
It’s the first exhibit in North America to showcase Vivier’s work, and it’s one that the museum’s senior curator, Elizabeth Semmelhack, says was years in the making. “When I was first hired at the museum, Mrs. Bata spent a great deal of time showing me the treasures in the collection,” explains Semmelhack. “This included 88 pullovers that Vivier created for Christian Dior. They were beautiful; they were sculptural, but I didn’t fully understand their significance. A few years later we acquired 63 of Vivier’s original unpublished illustrations. Now we had the pullovers, the illustrations and a nice selection of shoes; we were ready for an exhibit.”
The focus, however, isn’t only on the shoes. Semmelhack also wanted to highlight the man and his innovations. “Vivier was fascinated by different heel types,” she explains. “There was the choc, the New Style, the comma and, of course, the needle heel—or stiletto, as it is now called.” Semmelhack says she doesn’t prefer one heel over any other, but she is fascinated with how Vivier worked with negative space to create architecturally balanced and elegant lines. “He was able to get away with ornamentation and embellishment because the architecture of the shoes kept them from becoming too nostalgic or too twee.”
What was his next “breakout” shoe? Read on.

















