Beth Levine

Biography:

Beth Levine was one of the well known graven shoe designer remembered forever in the legend of shoe designers. She was born on 31st December 1911 in Patchogue, New York. This maverick designer was renowned for her brilliant craftsmanship in designing women’s shoes during 1940s.

By the time she stepped into the foot door of designing, she was the one among few women shoe designers, who had the desire and guts to show her excellence. She never had any formal training or implemented any basic methods in shoe making. However she crossed all the hurdles and reached the peak height in the haute monde world of fashion.

Company: Under the leadership and assistance of her husband Herbert Levine, she established a company of their own and labeled it as Herbert Levine in 1948. Although the company was named on the slyly hotshot journalist Herbert Levine, Beth Levine’s name was often featured as the designer of their products. The company was closed in 1975, unfortunately.

In Field Since: Beth Levine started her designing career in 1940s after working as a shoe model in Manhattan during 1930s. Gradually she worked her way up from stylist to a head designer. From 1940s to 1970s she rocked the haute couture with her flagrant designs of shoes for women.

Designs For: This savvy designer’s fabulous footwear had graced the feet of many famous personalities like Jacqueline Kennedy, Pat Nixon, Lady Bird Johnson and many more royal people.

Popularity: Beth Levine reached the height of a top notch shoe designer with her best known designs of Go-go boots. These shoes were especially designed for Nancy Sintaro, who wore them while singing “These boots are made for walkin” in 1966. She also made a pair of fabulous shoes for Barbara Streisand to wear in Funny Girl in 1964. And from there on she was named as the “First Lady of Shoe Design”. This flamboyant lady shoe designer even won a Neiman Marcus Award and two Coty American Fashion Critic Awards for her trendy stilty shoe collections.

Nationality: American Lady Shoe Designer.

What they say: “She was among the most influential shoe designers of the century,” said Elizabeth Semmelhack, chief curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, who included Mrs. Levine in an exhibition this year titled “Icons of Elegance.” “In looking at 20th-century shoe design, she was in many ways a maverick mind,” Semmelhack said. “She saw the possibilities in all sorts of new materials and different ways of making a shoe.”