1. most wanted
A Marriage of
Substance
Haute couture and ready-
to-wear meet in the sublime,
escapist designs of
Roger Vivier Rendez-Vous.
B
runo Frisoni was looking for a new
challenge as creative director of Roger
Vivier when it occurred to him that
perhaps the time had arrived to break the rules.
“I want to do a new story, something very special
and yet very relatable,” he explained on a recent
visit to New York. “I felt there was a gap for us
between ready-to-wear and couture, so I wanted
to do a new interpretation of luxury and unique-
ness.” The result: Rendez-Vous, a limited-edition
collection of shoes and bags launched for Spring/
Summer 2011. Frisoni’s designs bridge the abyss
between ready-to-wear and couture by offering
what he calls the “essential basics” of the house—
the perfect pump or clutch, for example—imbued
with couture techniques. Among the highlights is
the Nouvelle Vague pump (seen here),
seductively shaped and adorned with one
perfect rose crafted of feathers, work
done by Lemarié—the same Paris
atelier that creates the camellias for
Chanel. “One of my favorite words is
‘classic,’ because it’s the recogni-
tion of something beautiful and
understated,” Frisoni notes. “If
it’s classic, that also means that
many people have come to
recognize its beauty. And in a
sense, that makes it perfect.”
Rendez-Vous embarks on a
US tour next month; at
press time it was due to
arrive in the label’s Bal
Harbour boutique on
photograph by chris stein
Friday, May 6.
Bal Harbour Shops,
9700 Collins Ave.;
rogervivier.com.
—Laurie Brookins
150 oceandrive.com