Christian Louboutin (born 7 January 1964) is a French fashion designer. His stiletto footwear incorporates shiny, red-lacquered soles that have become his signature.[3] Initially a freelance designer for fashion houses, he started his shoe salon in Paris, with his shoes finding favour with celebrity clientele. He has partnered with other organizations for projects including limited edition pieces, gallery exhibits, and a custom bar. His company has since branched out into men's luxury footwear, ladies's handbags, fragrances, and makeup.
Early life
Louboutin was born and raised in Paris's 12th arrondissement. He was the only son of Roger, a cabinet-maker,[4] and Irene, a homemaker[5] from Brittany. He had three sisters. Louboutin said in a 2012 interview that he was "much darker-skinned than everyone else in my family. You know, I felt like I wasn't French. My family was very French and so I decided they had probably adopted me. But instead of feeling it was terrible and that I was an outsider who had to go and find my real family, I invented my own history, full of characters from Egypt, because I was very into the pharaohs."[6] He discovered that he had Egyptian heritage from his biological father, who had been in a secret relationship with his mother Irene, as revealed by one of his sisters in 2014.[7][8]
Louboutin was expelled from school three times and then he decided to run away from home at the age of 12,[9] at which point his mother allowed him to move out to live at a friend's house.[10] He faced much opposition when he decided to drop out from school. However, he claims that what helped him make up his mind was an interview on TV with Sophia Loren, in which she introduced her sister. She stated that she had to leave school when she was only 12, but got her degree when she was 50. He later remarked, "Everybody applauded! And I thought, Well, at least if I regret it I'm going to be like the sister of Sophia Loren!"
As a preteen he was one of the "Bande Du Palace", a group of hard-partying teens and preteens that included Eva Ionesco, who was a fixture of the Parisian nightclub Le Palace.[11]
Career
Louboutin's passion for designing shoes started at a young age, overshadowing his interest in academics and leading him towards a successful career in fashion. Going through a punk phase, he was in a few films, including the 1979 cult classic Race d'ep and The Homosexual Century, which attracted an English-language audience. His first job was at the Folies Bergère, the cabaret where he assisted the entertainers backstage. He was also a fixture on the city's party scene alongside Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol.[10]
Fascinated by world cultures, he ran away in his teens to Egypt and also spent a year in India. Louboutin returned to Paris in 1981, where he assembled a portfolio of drawings of elaborate high heels. He brought it to the top couture houses. The effort resulted in employment with Charles Jourdan. Subsequently, Louboutin met Roger Vivier, who invented the modern stiletto, or spiked-heel shoe, and the chrome-plated buckle pump. Louboutin became an apprentice in Vivier's atelier, Roger Vivier.[12]
Personal life
Landscape architect Louis Benech has been Louboutin's partner since 1999. The two divide their time among homes in the 1st arrondissement of Paris,[21] a fisherman's cottage in Lisbon, Portugal,[22] a house in Melides, Portugal, a house in Comporta, Portugal, a palace in Aleppo,[23] a houseboat on the Nile christened Dahabibi-my love boat, and a house in Luxor. The Luxor house is a former craftsman's workshop, made of compressed earthen bricks, to which he has added an additional floor and a rooftop belvedere.[24] Louboutin also shares a 13th-century castle in the Vendée with his business partner Bruno Chamberlain.[10]
Shoes
Louboutin helped bring stilettos back into fashion in the 1990s and 2000s,[26] designing dozens of styles with heel heights of 120 mm (4.72 inches) and higher. The designer's professed goal has been to "make a woman look sexy, beautiful, to make her legs look as long as [he] can".[27][28] While he does offer some lower-heeled styles, Louboutin is generally associated with dressier evening-wear designs incorporating jewelled straps, bows, feathers, patent leather, red soles and other decorative touches. He is most popularly known for the red leather soles on his high-heeled shoes.[29]
The first pair of red-soled Louboutin shoes were created in either 1992[30] or 1993, when Louboutin used an assistant's red nail polish to add red to a pair with black soles.[31]
Turnover and prices
In his first year of business, Louboutin sold 200 pairs of shoes. It has since become an internationally recognized brand.[50] The United States accounts for 52 per cent of Louboutin's sales; Europe, the Middle East and Russia, 30 per cent; and Asia 18 per cent.[51] Of the firm's $300 million in annual revenue,[52] 95% comes from shoes,[51] with the remainder derived from purses and handbags.[51] They expect the volume of handbags to eventually represent 20% of their annual sales.[51]
In 2009, wholesale purchases represented 88% of the business.[51]
Brand extensions
In 2012 Louboutin said that over the previous decade he had been offered licensing deals on everything from cars and glasses to swimwear and ready-to-wear, but turned them down as he does not want his name to be one that can be licensed.[52] In 2003, his first extension outside of shoes was the introduction of his handbags and purses line.
In 2011, he launched a collection of men's footwear at a new exclusive store in Paris. Two explanations were given why Louboutin started a men's line. The first was a story of a French woman who asked him to make her a pair of shoes for her very large feet. He custom-created the size 13 1/2 shoes for her, but she didn't end up buying them. Instead, he passed them along to a friend who gave them to her husband.[55] The second story was that the idea of starting a men's line came from musician Mika, who asked Louboutin to design all the shoes for his show for his tour.[56] He also noticed, "There is a group of men that is thinking a little bit more like women. They're super-excited to buy the 'new thing.' I've noticed on blogs, for example, that men are very serious about their shoes now. They treat shoes very much as objects, as collectors' items. Of course, there is still a group that is more conservative in their tastes. They like to pass their shoes down to their son or say they have had a pair for 25 years".[52]
Projects
In 2007, he collaborated with the filmmaker David Lynch on Fetish, an exhibition of his shoes in Lynch's photographs as erotic sculptural objects including ballet pumps made vertical by an impossible heel, or shoes with heels projecting inches beyond the sole[66] (Viennese heel). He partnered once again with Lynch and Swizz Beats to compose music when Louboutin directed a show at the Crazy Horse, called Feu, which ran from 5 March to 31 May 2012.[67]
In conjunction with Bergdorf Goodman, he held a competition for design students at the Parsons New School for Design who graduated in 2010 and 2011, encouraging them to create apparel inspired by Louboutin's silhouettes of the past two decades, as well as the brand's new capsule collection.[68]
In 2012, he was commissioned by Disney to create a modern-day Cinderella-inspired pair of slippers limited to just 20 pieces, to complement release of the Cinderella: Diamond Edition Blu-ray Combo Pack in the fall.[69]
Stores
In the spring of 2012, the company opened its first men's store in New York City, with over 1000 sqft of space and located next to its existing Horatio Street store.[77] From previous experience in his Paris store, Louboutin claimed that women feel uncomfortable when men stare at them while they try on shoes, hence the separate stores.[57]
The first Louboutin Men's Boutique, Christian Louboutin Boutique Homme on Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Paris, opened in the summer of 2012.
Christian Louboutin Miami is located on 40th Street in the Design District of Miami, Florida.[78] Louboutin chose to open a store in Miami because of the mix of businesses, the small urban scale, and his obvious following there. During Miami Basel art fair when the store opened in 2009, he said, "You don't get this with Europeans—but Americans actually come into my office in Paris to meet me, and a lot of those people are from Miami." The boutique stocks Louboutin's most colorful, strappy, precarious styles, on account of the subtropical climate and the fact that, Louboutin says, "people barely walk in the street."[79]
Counterfeiting
Louboutin's website sells some of their products online, and contains a statement that it is the only legitimate online source with the word Louboutin in the domain name to do so.[82][83][84][85] Legitimate Louboutin shoes can also be purchased in-store and online from retailers such as Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Selfridges, Joseph, Browns, Matches, Cricket and Cruise and online through Net-a-Porter and DesignerPlug in the UK. Barneys, Saks Fifth Avenue
Filmography
- 1985: La Nuit Porte Jarretelles by Virginie Thévenet
- 1987: Jeux d'Artifices by Virginie Thévenet
- 1994: La Folie Douce by Frédéric Jardin
- 2009: La Traversée du Désir by Arielle Dombasle
- 2018: Alien Crystal Palace by Arielle Dombasle
Television appearances
- 2023: Drag Race France as Guest judge
In popular culture
- Breaking Bad antagonist Lydia Rodarte-Quayle frequently wore black Louboutin stilettos. Camera angles often focused on the shoes and trademark soles, particularly during the episode "Buried".[87][88][89]
- Lucifer protagonist Lucifer Morningstar often wore red-soled Louboutin shoes.[90]
- Sex and the City protagonist Carrie Bradshaw wore many pairs of shoes designed by Louboutin.
- Jennifer Lopez's single "Louboutins" was inspired by the footwear, and the visual imagery associated with the song—such as the album art—features a woman wearing a pair of Louboutin heels with red bottoms.
General references
- Footwear News, 1 June 1992, p. S8; 9 December 2002, p. 50
- Harper's Bazaar, December 1999, p. 104; April 2001, p. 226
- Newsweek International, 24 February 2003, p. 48
- People, 10 February 2003, pp. 87–88
- Vogue, June 2004, p. 206
External links
References
- Christian Louboutin Silver Screen-Bound Daily Front Row, 11 April 2007^
- Zoe Wolff. Sole Provider Elle, 28 October 2011^
- Suzan Michele Bourgoin. Encyclopedia of World Biography Gale, 2 December 1997^