Amelia’s Magazine | Repetto after meâ

What links Chloé Sevigny, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, Vanessa Paradis and Rei Kawakubo? Aside from killer fashion sense, they’re just four of the 60 creative luminaries designing a Repetto pump for the retrospective at London’s Dover Street Market – one designer for every year that Repetto have been producing their lauded and lovable ballet pumps.

Bringing together icons from the worlds of dance, film, art, fashion, choreography, music and design, this one-of-a-kind exhibition has more than fashion appeal at its core – every design will be auctioned in October 2008, with all proceeds going to Unesco to fund select educational establishments. And seeing as we all love a bit of fash-meets-art with a heart, I didn’t need any other reason to plié and pirouette over to the store…but then Repetto went and spoiled me with some seriously impressive fashion facts that had my stylish swedes in a spin. Said facts are:

– That Repetto have been collaborating with Comme des Garcons since 2004
– That Dover Street Market will be selling its own limited edition design
– That genius theatre designer, Michael Howells, is the brain behind the DSM set
Cue squawks and swoons.

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The exhibition – called simply, 60 Ans , elevates the wardrobe essential into an objet d’art and gets you admiring not only the fine form, but also the myriad famous feet it has graced over the years. For starters, there’s current brand ambassador (and unimpeachable style icon) Charlotte Gainsbourg and her famous smoothie of a father, ‘Seeeerge’, who represented Repetto throughout the sexy 70s. And lest we forget, two other French fancies, both of whom have had an astronomical effect on the brand’s enduring popularity – Brigitte Bardot, courtesy of her infamous red slipper moments in And God Created Woman and Carla Bruni, for whom Repetto pumps provide the perfect compliment to her signature, simple style. Yep, it’s clear that these practical pumps are as iconic as ever.

Hardly news to me. Once as a precocious student I took off one of my Repettos in the middle of the Guggenheim and placed it in the centre of the floor, at a jaunty angle, watching with amusement as a small crowd gathered around it in silent appraisal. Okay, so perhaps I was taking the piss, but the fact was, it looked as though it belonged…it is, after all, a modern design classic. And for anyone who deems the comparison of a shoe to a work by Hockney or Bacon to be sacrilegious, I would tell you to withhold your wrath until you have glimpsed the jewel in the crown – the Bardot ‘Strass Rouge’ – a ruby red slipper that is strictly limited edition and individually numbered by Repetto. In my world, anything that pretty and precious deserves the hype. In my world, hanging’s too good for it.

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