Uma Thurman, Dita Von Teese, Sting and Trudie, the Earl of March and the film director Mike Radford are all expected at tonight’s opening party for Roger Vivier, a new, upscale shoe store on Sloane Street, where shoes will retail from £300 and where, unless its owners have got things very wrong, turnover will be brisk. Not so brisk, perhaps, as at French Sole, a diminutive emporium a few streets away that has hit the jackpot with its multicoloured ballet shoes (thank you, Kate Moss, for that trend) and where demand is so insatiable that the staff sometimes have to lock the doors to control the crowds. The ballet pumps in French Sole cost “only” from £65, but hardly anyone walks out with just one pair.

Back at Roger Vivier, the irresistible array of colours in which its most famous style (Belle Vivier, the buckled pump worn by Catherine Deneuve in the Buñuel film Belle de Jour) means that even well balanced women find themselves emerging from the store with more than originally intended.

Shoes are big news in retail: they are the next step in a fashion conspiracy that first made bags, and is now making footwear arguably more important than clothes. If that seems a far-fetched theory — there are, as yet, no catwalk shoe shows — consider how easy it is to get away with wearing many of last year’s outfits. Yet owning This Season’s Shoe is crucial. Shoes fit you however much weight you gain. They aren’t as prone to taboos of age as, say, drainpipes or shorts. And they add a reliable shot of class to your New Look or Topshop outfit.

Moreover, shoes are the perfect bait for the growing number of “completists”; consumers who want one in every colour (and who were so cleverly exploited by iMac and iPod). Even so, £800 for a pair of shoes?

When did that happen? Rupert Sanderson, a shoe designer benefiting from our love affair with stratospherically pricey shoes, says that latent Imelda Marcos syndrome has always existed, “but in small numbers. Now there’s a climate that makes it seem an acceptable obsession,” he says. “We’ve just sold out of a £1,100 crocodile shoe at Harrods and we’re not even halfway through the season. It’s partly to do with what you see in the media — if they keep featuring £600 shoes, then a £295 shoe starts to seem reasonable.”

The Roger Vivier shop comes to London (and shortly thereafter New York, Tokyo and Milan) courtesy of Diego Della Valle, the charismatic CEO of Tod’s and Hogan, two successful shoe companies that went global in one decade, spawning handbag ranges and a trail of celebrity endorsements in their wake. Where Della Valle shrewdly made Tod’s seem like a heritage brand (following in the footsteps of Prada, Gucci and Louis Vuitton) by using pictures of Audrey Hepburn and Steve McQueen in its early advertisements, Roger Vivier is the real thing.

It was launched in 1937 on the Rue Royale in Paris by Roger Vivier. One of only a handful of “shoe designers’ shoe designers”, he is generally credited with inventing the stiletto heel. Something about the Quaker-like purity and austerity of the shape of his classic Belle Vivier (initially designed for an Yves Saint Laurent show in 1965 and, with minor adjustments, for Catherine Deneuve in her kinkiest film role) aligned with the erotic intensity of Deneuve’s on-screen character, lit a fuse. After the film’s release, Vivier sold 50 pairs a day to, among others, Jackie Kennedy and Marlene Dietrich. In its modern incarnation, under the witty eye of Bruno Frisoni, the company’s creative director (see box, left), that number has multiplied worldwide.

Della Valle believes he can build Roger Vivier even quicker than he built Tod’s, not least because it comes with a history and recognition. The biggest hurdle was purchasing the brand and securing rights to its archives, he says. “So many brands have become too commercial. Exclusivity is welcomed.”

The fact that some of Roger Vivier’s shoes are in exotic skins and are couture yet practical, with stubby heels, certainly makes the company unusual — and the financial clout of the Tod’s group will ensure its success.

Will shoe mania abate and prices flat-line? “I can’t see it happening,” says Rupert Sanderson. “For a whole boring bunch of reasons, including new EU legislation, production in Italy has become 30 per cent more expensive. And every new size of the same style has to be slightly reconfigured.

“Plus there’s a new, feverish language that people talk in now. When I used to tell people at parties how much my shoes cost they would laugh. Now they accept it. Even the men.”

Bruno Frisoni

Born: 1959 in Burgundy, France, to Italian parents

First shoe moment: Counting the perforated holes in my sandals when I was 6. Then I saw the Roger Vivier retrospective in 1987 in Paris

First job: Working for Jean Louis Scherrer, designing clothes, knitwear, bags, hats, scarves and shoes

Big break: Minimalism. Accessories went out of the window but it meant that there was a focus on shoes and bags

Fairy godmothers: I have two, and, in 2000, they arranged a blind date for Diego Della Valle and me. There was electricity between us

Inspiration: No one in Burgundy was stylish, apart from my aunt in her mini dresses and sunglasses. Stylish is where chic meets playfulness. That’s what Vivier understood and it’s what I try to achieve now

Design philosophy: Anti-vulgarity. What is vulgarity? For me it’s a gold shoe that’s pointy and high. If you do gold, make it low. If you do high, make it red velvet

Shoe facts

The world’s most expensive pair of shoes, at £1 million, were designed by Stuart Weitzman. Flaunting 565 platinum set diamonds and 642 rubies, they were worn to the 2004 Oscars by the singer Alison Krauss — and attracted way more coverage than she did

Alice Olins

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