Squaring the Winkle Picker

Is the winkle picker* on the way out? In Manhattan shoe salons last week, style setters and trend diviners were claiming that the pointed-toe look was slowly becoming old shoe. Offering blessed relief to women, who for five years have painfully squeezed their feet into narrow, stiletto-heeled, pointed-toe shoes, is the radically different "chisel toe" look--long, flattened, square-toed shoes that bear more than passing resemblance to the bill of a platypus.

Creator of the chisel-toed footwear is Christian Dior's imperious impresario of shoe design. Roger Vivier, 50, the man who brought the pointed-toe shoe to the U.S. and whom many merchandisers consider the top shoe designer. Vivier shrugs off the complete style change between the two shoes. "After all," he says, "in geometric forms there is only the round, the pointed and the square." Inspiration for the new style came from a pair of 100-year-old blunt-toed shoes. "I hate reminiscence," says Vivier. "I did not imitate; I was inspired.''

Such moments of inspiration on the part of Vivier and other major shoe designers send shivers of dread and anticipation through the shoe industry. Both the U.S.'s Capezio and England's Edward Rayne have shown modified blunt toes in their new collections. But shoe dealers who still have inventories of pointed shoes grumble that women are not ready for such radical changes. In the heady atmosphere of the arch-creator's Olympus, Vivier has no patience with such mundane complaints. Breathlessly awaiting his new-creations are Queens (England's two Elizabeths, Iran's Farah Diba), near queen (the Duchess of Windsor) and movie queens (Olivia de Havilland, Marlene Dietrich).

An amateur shoe designer at 16, Vivier came to the U.S. in 1929 as a designer for Delman's, remained for 25 years. Seven years ago, Vivier returned to Paris as Dior's chief shoe designer. For his custom-made spring collection, he fashioned 70 new chisel-toed models that range in price from $120 to $300. Vivier also produced 60 models for his ready-to-wear line that sell from $17 to $30 a pair.

Already Parisian shoe stores are selling copies of Vivier's square-toed look for as little as $6 a pair. In the U.S., shoemen anticipate that the chisel-toed look will take longer to catch on. But by fall, fashion setters bet that the feet of U.S. women will show that they too have gone square.

* In England the winkle picker is an extremely pointed-toe shoe. The term is derived from the sharp pin used in eating periwinkles.

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