On the rooftop of Holloway House, one of the newest hotel properties of Soho House, a host of actresses who are fans of Roger Vivier brands came out to celebrate the accessories brand on the evening of Dec. 9.
During cocktails, Mayfair Witches and The White Lotus star Alexandra Daddario chatted with Roger Vivier creative director Gherardo Felloni about his unique holiday home in Italy, a former lighthouse on Giglio Island off the coast of Tuscany. Cheryl Strayed, the best-selling writer of Wild, was there to see Laura Dern, one of the co-hosts of the party and the star of 2014 film based on the book.
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Dern, who shared hosting duties for the evening with consultant and former InStyle editor-in-chief Laura Brown, told The Hollywood Reporter that she has been a fan of the brand’s shoes for decades.
“I have been since I started watching movies. I fell in love with the iconic Vivier shoes through women I admire like Catherine Deneuve,” said Dern of the actress who famously wore Roger Vivier black shoes with metal buckles in 1967’s Belle de Jour. Dern, who stars this fall in Florian Zeller’s drama The Son, was wearing a pair of red Vivier pumps that she said reminded her of “my first shoe love.” At 20, she bought a pair of Roger Vivier shoes in Paris that were modelled after Deneuve’s footwear in Belle de Jour.
But Dern had never officially connected with the brand, until Brown made an introduction earlier this year.
As Felloni, a fan of Dern’s since he saw her in David Lynch’s 1990 film Wild at Heart, recalls it, “I saw [Laura Brown] in April last fashion week and I said, ‘Come on, Laura, let’s do something together. She introduced me by phone to Laura Dern, who I am obsessed with because she’s a great actress, she’s super beautiful, talented, iconic.
“So Laura [Brown] asked Laura [Dern] if she wants to host a dinner in Los Angeles for the brand. I said, ‘Oh fantastic.’ So that’s the reason I come here,” continued Felloni, who hadn’t thrown a soiree in L.A. since before the pandemic.
Among the stylish actresses who turned out for the dinner — which featured table decor by Mimi Brown Studio — were Alexandra Shipp, Jurnee Smollett, Allison Janney, Christina Hendricks, Lake Bell, Kristen Wiig, Sarah Shahi, Halston Sage, Brittney O’Grady, Bella Heathcote, Kathryn Newton, Michelle Randolph, Brianne Howey, Audrey Corsa, Larsen Thompson and Frida Gustavsson. Also in the crowd were writer-director Jenni Konner, director Niki Caro, Bling Empire’s Christine Chiu, artist Alex Israel and stylist Jeanne Yang.
The turnout spoke to the interest in the house of Vivier and the energy at the brand under Felloni, 85 years after its founder opened his first shop in Paris in 1937. Roger Vivier, who died in 1998 at age 90, was also known for making the gold pumps that Queen Elizabeth wore at her coronation in 1953. He’s also been credited as creating the first stiletto heel, though André Perugia and Salvatore Ferragamo also have a claim on that innovation.
Regarding Felloni’s turn at the helm of the brand (which is also known for its bags and jewelry), Dern told THR that, “What Gerardo is doing now is he’s balancing honoring the iconic iconography while also being at play.” She says she loves his takes on “the classic buckled shoe [that he’s done] in those tone-on-tone almost Bakelite buckles with those beautiful spring colors, a mint green, a violet.”
Among Felloni’s innovations at the brand are the I Love Vivier pumps which have a silhouette in the front that creates a heart shape. “It’s performing super well and it’s super comfortable,” said Felloni, who grew up in a shoe-making family in Italy and was named creative director of Roger Vivier in 2018. “I have two or three little secrets. It was the brand of my dreams. So when they proposed me to work on this brand, I was super excited.”
Dern, who brought her daughter Jaya Harper to the dinner, expanded on her penchant for shoes, adding, “As an actress and a woman, I love shoes. They are the one luxury item I’ve always been in love with. But as an actor, shoes really do make the character, in terms of trying to get inside who that person is. That’s always been really interesting to me.”
Scroll on for more pictures from the Roger Vivier dinner at Holloway House.
