NEW YORK — Beth Levine, an influential shoe designer who worked with many of the great names in fashion and was credited with innovations such as clear plastic heels, died Wednesday of lung cancer. She was 91.
Born Beth Katz on Dec. 31, 1914 in Patchogue, N.Y., Levine moved to New York City to become a shoe model because she had size 4B feet, which at the time was the sample size. “She had lots of ideas and wanted eventually to have her own company,” recalled her daughter Anna Thomson-Wilson of New York. She met her husband, Herbert Levine, a reporter, and together they opened Herbert Levine, a shoe company, in 1948.
“My mother was always trying to invent new ways of doing things,” Thomson-Wilson said. “She just said no is not an answer.” Levine made stretch boots with no zipper, shoes with clear heels that had to be glued instead of nailed through the heel, mules that stayed on with an elastic device she invented called the Spring-o-Lator, and ultrathin heels that wouldn’t snap because the bottom half was made of steel.
In the company’s later years, her sister, Ruth Ballin, helped her design and did the sketches. The firm created shoes for most of the designers at the time, including Geoffrey Beene, Halston, Anne Klein and Bill Blass, said her niece, Nan Bush. Her shoes were worn by many famous women, including Nancy Sinatra, Jackie Kennedy, and Patricia Nixon. She made a pair of red crystal pumps for Liza Minnelli’s second wedding to Jack Haley Jr.
Levine won many awards, including a Coty Award in 1967.
The Levines closed their business in 1975 because of pressure to lower quality and prices, according to Thomson-Wilson. After they closed the business, Levine stayed busy attending fashion shows and giving advice to designers about their collections. Bill Blass designer Michael Vollbracht was one of her closest friends, and she was also close to Azzedine Alaïa, for whom she designed several shoes over the years.
“She was one of the most important people working in shoes,” Alaïa said. “Her shoes were highly imaginative, strong and modern. She was very intelligent.”
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Survivors include Levine’s grandsons H. Hugo Thomson and William Davidson Thomson 3rd. A memorial service will be held Friday at 1:30 pm at Frank E. Campbell in Manhattan.