The Stage · Andrea Pfister 1970s Black Satin Heels, AU 7
Black satin · cone heel · almond toe · bugle bead bow · silver metallic leather insole · Andrea Pfister signature · made in Italy · 1970s–1980s · AU 7 · EU 38 · UK 5 · US 7.5
Black satin, cone heel, almond toe, and at the toe cap a bow built from black and silver bugle beads: three-dimensional, dense, rising slightly from the surface with the weight of its own construction. The silver metallic leather insole carries Andrea Pfister's signature in script. This is a shoe that announces itself before you have crossed the room.
Andrea Pfister, made in Italy, 1970s to 1980s. Pfister was born in Pesaro and trained in Paris before establishing himself in Florence, where from the 1960s he made shoes that occupied the intersection of fashion and sculpture. His clients included Catherine Deneuve and Lauren Bacall, and his footwear was collected by the Victoria and Albert Museum. What Pfister understood, that a shoe is worn at the furthest possible point from the face and therefore must do its communicating entirely on its own terms, produced shoes of uncommon authority. The bead bow on this shoe is not decorative embellishment applied to a court shoe; it is the reason the court shoe exists.
The shoe you wear when the occasion has to rise to meet you.
Care
The satin upper should be kept dry; satin marks permanently if wet. Store in their box or in individual soft bags to protect the bead bow from pressure. Do not press. The heel tip can be replaced by a cobbler, for longevity, if needed.
More on looking after vintage pieces in our care guide.
Size
Measured flat: Insole 25cm. AU 7 · EU 38 · UK 5 · US 7.5.
Our size guide explains how vintage sizing is read here.
Condition
Exhibition condition. The satin upper is clean with minimal pulls or damage. The bugle bead bow is missing a small handful of beads, not noticeable when worn, and is three-dimensional, and securely attached. The cone heel shows no wear. The silver insole signature is legible. A shoe that has been worn very little, or very carefully.
Our condition lexicon explains the grades we use.
Before it reaches you
Someone loved this before you did, and I try to honour that properly. Each piece is hand washed, or cleaned in the way that the fabric permits, then steamed until it softens and straightens and feels newly attended to. Wherever a button was missing, it has been replaced with a vintage one from my long-kept collection. Wherever a hem had given way, I fix it by hand. By the time it leaves this room it is genuinely clean, pressed, whole, and looked over one final time before I let myself believe it is ready. Not restored. Not made new. Just returned to a state where it can be loved again, by someone who was not there the first time.
Pfister understood that a shoe does its talking from the point on the body furthest from the face, and so gave this one a beaded bow loud enough to be heard across a room without anyone raising a voice. Deneuve and Bacall wore his work and the V and A keeps some behind glass, so this pair has famous relatives and carries itself accordingly. The few beads gone missing from the bow are only the ones that stepped off at earlier occasions and chose not to come back, which is their right. Put them on and the evening is obliged to lift itself to their level, having been told, from ankle height, precisely what is expected.