Origins: Roger Vivier

Who started it?

Born in Paris in 1907, Roger Vivier was orphaned at the age of nine and brought up by his aunt. When he was 17 he attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts to study sculpture until family friends asked him to sketch a few shoe designs.

By the time he was 20 he was designing and manufacturing footwear. In the 1930s, Vivier honed his skills working at leather firm Paiva until 1937 when he opened his own design studio at 22 Rue Royale in Paris.

After one of Vivier's designs was featured in Elsa Schiaperelli's spring/summer 1937 collection, he was contacted by American firm Delman's to design shoes, which he began doing in 1939, when he closed his studio at the outset of war. In the US, Vivier worked as a photographer, collaborated with Bergdorf Goodman, designed hats with ex-Agnes designer Suzanne Remy and opened a boutique called Suzanne and Roger on Madison Avenue.

In 1947, Vivier returned to Paris, where he was introduced to Christian Dior. The couturier invited Vivier to design Dior's first shoe collection in 1953. Vivier started his own footwear label in 1963, with Jacqueline Kennedy, Ava Gardner and Catherine Deneuve among his clients. His label became well-known internationally from 1963 to 1995. He died in 1998 at the age of 90.

Who's behind it now?