 The company has for many years focused on being viewed as setting trends and innovating in fashion design, and it can be debated whether Herbert Levine and Beth Levine inspired this innovation or learned from it; both may be true.Jourdan and the Levines are arguably the most innovative designers to use new materials in women's shoes in the period since World War II.In the 1960s and early 1970s Jourdan used its magazine advertising campaigns to advance its avant-garde image by using imagery from the surrealist photographer Guy Bourdin.