Listening to Vanessa Noel talk about shoes is a lesson in passion and inspiration. The designer’s love for her chosen field pulses through every word she chooses, and it informs the legacy project she is devoting herself to: The Noel Shoe Museum, the first-ever museum in the U.S. dedicated to footwear, to be housed in a permanent space in New York City.

The idea for such a museum came to her after she suffered a severe heart attack nine years ago. Surviving such a harrowing experience triggered some reflection and perspective.

“I thought, what if I had expired,” Noel recalled. “I thought about all the people who work for me, my staff in New York, the factories in Italy. I thought about my label, my shoes, and all these other amazing icons of our industry who are gone, and nobody talks about what they did for shoes.”

Enter the museum, which will celebrate footwear creativity and imagination in history with a focus on the history of footwear design, designers, and manufacturing.

“Part of our mission is to learn about mankind through the evolution of the shoe,” Noel explained. “The first time we step on two feet, we wrap them with skins and weaves. The shoes depict where and how we lived.

“Shoes are not an accessory; they are a necessity like stripes to a tiger,” she added. “You can’t go anywhere without wearing them. They are a very important part of the wardrobe and it’s fascinating how, over the centuries, they began to change and become a fashion, to become athletic, and today, we have shoes for everything.”

In addition to the pieces she personally collected over the years and will give over to the museum once it has a permanent home, Noel has been reaching out to collectors and auction houses to further build the collection. Currently, the earliest shoe in the 3,000-strong archive is Incan from the 11^th century. The fascinating journey will take visitors through the Middle Ages, Persian Warrior iron boots, fashion and athletic designs – the latter punctuated with Usain Bolt’s autographed gold Puma track shoes – and even the shoes worn by Uncle Soapy the clown.

The designs, she said, “will have a deserving final resting place to be seen, understood, and adored. The collection will be extensive and wide in scope to provide a real understanding of footwear history and its evolution. I want people to learn, I want them to be inspired, and I want them to understand shoes better.”

A pop-up exhibition launched at her Upper East Side townhouse, which is open three days a week by appointment this Summer. She has put together an impressive board for the nonprofit, which includes Susan Gutfreund, Carolina Herrera, Carolyn Maloney, H.R.H. Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia, and Jackie Tucker.

For Noel, who has been designing shoes for almost four decades, this is more than just a passion project. As she put it, “This is a legacy project. As a designer, it feels so amazing to spread my arms out to all other designers in the industry.”

http://noelshoemuseum.org