PARIS — Roger Vivier has a new home in Paris.

After almost nine decades on the Right Bank, the storied French footwear brand has crossed the Seine river and moved into a lavish 18th-century mansion in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. 

Like a global embassy, the residence will serve to broadcast the brand’s identity, share its heritage and welcome guests ranging from fashion students to VIPs — starting with a housewarming party on Thursday during Paris Fashion Week.

Entering the 15,000-square-foot Maison Vivier via a paved courtyard, visitors are greeted with a wrought iron staircase framing a gilded sunburst ornament. 

The ground floor is home to the offices of creative director Gherardo Felloni and longtime brand ambassador Inès de la Fressange; the Salon de l’Héritage, an exhibition space and the Salon Vivier reception room, which reflects the distinctive interior design taste of the house’s founder.

The basement chapel has been converted into a temperature-controlled archive housing creations dating back to the 1950s, while the first floor is home to the design studio and a conference room decorated with Vivier’s brightly colored collages depicting — naturally — shoes. 

“Now, we can ask people to come here, and we have a place that speaks for itself,” Felloni said during an exclusive preview tour of the premises. “It’s easier to explain and let people understand the feeling of this brand.”

His spring 2026 collection of shoes, handbags and accessories, to be unveiled on Friday, will mark the 60th anniversary of the Belle Vivier, the house’s most famous style. The presentation will be accompanied by a short film featuring Laetitia Casta. 

First designed for Yves Saint Laurent’s 1965 Mondrian collection, and immortalized by Catherine Deneuve in “Belle de Jour,” the Belle Vivier has been worn by everyone from Jackie Kennedy to Selena Gomez. 

The Shoe That Changed Everything

“I’m obsessed,” Felloni said. “This shoe is really powerful, emblematic. It changed everything — changed fashion, changed Roger Vivier.”

With its architectural square buckle and block heel, it ushered in an era of women’s liberation — and in the process, secured the house’s place in fashion history. 

The original shoe features in the opening exhibition at Maison Vivier, curated by de la Fressange, whose career as a model and designer has made her an arbiter of Parisian style. But she also included a broad selection of other creations to highlight the founder’s innovative and experimental spirit.

“For a lot of people, Roger Vivier is all about the buckle shoe because it has become an icon — kind of like Levi’s jeans or the Burberry trenchcoat. Those pieces are so timeless and recognizable that they almost overshadow everything else,” de la Fressange said.

“That’s exactly what I wanted to push against, to show the full range of what Vivier actually created: the shapes, the materials, the creativity, the craftsmanship,” she added. 

The vintage shoes are displayed against the backdrop of Xavier Feal’s brushed steel shelves and Vincent Darré’s pink geometric Labyrinth carpet.

Vivier is credited with inventing the stiletto, and originated many seminal heel shapes that have influenced generations of footwear designers — among them the comma-shaped Virgule, the concave Choc and the Epine, adorned with a thorn. 

Known as the Fabergé of footwear, he worked with couturiers including Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent, using materials ranging from leather and silk to feathers, rhinestones, lace and metal threads. “He was always exploring, trying to bring something new to the table,” de la Fressange said. 

Revived by Italian entrepreneur Diego Della Valle in 2003, the brand now belongs to Tod’s Group. 

Working by Instinct

As it settles into its new digs, Vivier is beefing up its archive, which consists of 1,000 items, ranging from historically significant shoes to documents such as collages and sketches, magazines, photographs and press kits, which are available to consult for the first time. 

Born into a family of Italian shoemakers, Felloni still recalls the first time he saw one of Vivier’s creations. He was 19 when he came across a book featuring a pink Virgule shoe. 

“I had no idea who Roger Vivier was. I was not supposed to be a shoe designer,” said Felloni, who dreamed of becoming a singer, then an architect, before his father lured him to the factory with a summer internship sketching shoes.

He went on to work in the accessories and footwear departments of labels like Miu Miu and Dior, before taking the creative helm at Vivier in 2018. Felloni has energized the brand with his theatrical presentations and campaigns featuring the likes of Deneuve, Laura Dern and Susan Sarandon, winning the Designer of The Year trophy at the 2023 Footwear News Achievement Awards.

His pink and green office reflects his eclectic sensibility, with a curated mix of antiques and contemporary pieces, such as his modular hexagonal desk made of pale green concrete, designed by Duccio Maria Gambi, that was inspired by the kindergarten lunch tables he remembers from childhood.

Putty pink shelves hold books on subjects ranging from Ettore Sottsass to 19th-century jewelry; a honeycomb-patterned Limoges tea set, and a vintage mannequin head from La Rosa. 

It’s all fodder for his designs, though Felloni rarely dips into his library. “My brain is quite simple, but quite strange, because I store everything, but I don’t use it right away. All these books, I’ve already seen them, but I’ll never open them again,” he said.

“It’s the same process with the archive. You don’t have to copy the archive. You have to take the feeling of the shoes,” he explained. “I like to have the idea of a code and it makes it easy for me to do a contemporary version of it, because otherwise, the risk is to do old things.”

All Roads Lead to Paris

If the media-friendly designer has become the public face of the brand, the same can’t be said of Vivier himself, who remains something of an enigma. 

“We live in a time where we know a designer’s face, their house, even their dog. But Vivier? We once posted a photo of him, and no one even realized who it was,” de la Fressange said.

“I remember going to the Saint Laurent couture show, and he was there, just standing quietly in his raincoat. Nobody knew it was Roger Vivier. And yet, he was the one who created entire families of shoes before anyone else even thought to,” she mused.

The Salon Vivier aims to shed more light on the founder by bringing his private world to life. Its decor is modeled after Vivier’s former apartment, with a mix of Mies van der Rohe chairs, African masks and a Chinese cabinet from the collection of Hubert de Givenchy. 

In the past, de la Fressange would invite treasured clients to her memorabilia-filled office above the Vivier boutique on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré for an intimate chat. At the new residence, she can host everything from dinners to conferences with fashion historians.

“Luxury is also about how you welcome people, how you introduce them to the brand and explain what it stands for, and the kind of service you offer,” she noted. “For visitors from China, Japan or even the U.S., seeing something so authentically Parisian is a real experience.”

Vivier has been doubling down on its Paris roots as it expands internationally. A recent Pièce Unique collection of one-of-a-kind handbags was inspired by local landmarks including the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, while the brand’s fall campaign channeled an idealized vision of “La Vie Parisienne.” 

Felloni believes this messaging is crucial to cut through the noise and appeal to a younger consumer who increasingly favors experiences over luxury goods.

“Everybody knows that Roger Vivier is a French brand…but now there’s a big crisis of fashion in general, I think that we have to speak really clearly to the audience and not take anything for granted,” he said. 

“We need to be really comprehensible today. If you’re not comprehensible, everything is so fast, there is so much information, and there’s always someone that speaks louder than you,” he continued. “And, of course, Paris is the city where everything happens.”