Inside Roger Vivier’s Surreal, Swan-Themed Paris Presentation

A woman atop a towering swan wove and blew kisses. She was elegantly flanked by artisans who were hand-applying feathers on candy-colored pastel silks. The next room offered up a boudoir-style circular bed with an opera singer belting out her best songs in black lacy lingerie surrounded by men painted as angels, wings included. In the other room? Cocktails and little cakes, as well as a ballet performance by dancers dressed up as cats, wearing Roger Vivier shoes, of course. And that was only the first floor.

Guest including Precious Lee, Ella Emhoff, Camille Razat, Gottmik, Violet Chachki, Olivia Palermo, Cindy Bruna, Catherine Deneuve, Coco Rocha, Alexa Chung, and Rossy de Palma swooned over the debut of the brand’s fall 2022 collection while interacting with models in the immersive space. Elsewhere, Sveva Alviti, Vassili Schneider, Gabrielle Ryan, Tamu McPherson, Susie Lau, Olivia Jade, Jessica Wang, Vanessa Hong, and Sai de Silva explored the presentation.

The brand’s Hotel Vivier presentations are known to be whimsically over-the-top, and with this edition being the first one since the onset of the pandemic, creative director Gherardo Felloni was feeling extra inspired. “It feels good to be back and celebrate creativity,” he told us. “For me, inspiration comes from freedom, and Hotel Vivier is always a celebration of creativity and art.”

The upper floors of the Hotel Vivier showcased new products in creative ways. Legs jutted out from walls wearing the new crystal chain leg jewelry meant to be worn just below the knees, while the Choc Feathers pump (a take on an archive look) sat on a table below the giant swan.

The blend of surrealism and craftsmanship made the whole experience feel a bit like a modern fashion-geared version of Fellini’s Satyricon, so it’s no surprise that one of the rooms played Nino Rota music from a Fellini film. Actors went all out to make the experience truly immersive, with a mad maid haunting and teasing guests, while a dancer gleefully pointed out guests’ outfits and another one playfully ate cake and performed a mock striptease. In another room full of wigs, drag queens applied each other’s makeup and called out to passersby with little quips.

But perhaps the most striking motif of the whole event was the cat. Felloni integrated it into performances, jewelry, bejeweled minauderies, and as golden clasps on fluffy bags. It all came courtesy of his own feline obsession which recently increased even more during the pandemic when he bought a remote lighthouse and kept adopting local cats. “I really do love cats,” he said. “They inspire me because I am a designer who doesn t impose things on women… you can t impose things on a cat either.”