Louboutin

photo: © Christian Louboutin official website

Louboutin

Christian Louboutin

Christian Louboutin, Designer and creator of the Louboutin brand

His career began with a sign – not one from above, but a literal one – placed at the entrance of the National Museum of Arts of Africa and Oceania. The sign was forbidding women from wearing stilettos so that they wouldn’t scratch the parquet floor. Back then, the ten-year-old Christian did not yet know that this is exactly what would be at the core of his life’s work.

Growing up with his three sisters, the Paris-born designer was always highly sensitive to femininity’s nuances. For him, every woman is a work of art, a goddess, a source of immense power. When he was 16, he began working as an intern at the famous cabaret Folies Bergère where he would design the dancers’ shoes. Soon after, the world became his stage.

One day, while he was working on a new shoe design, but thought it wasn’t good enough, his eyes fell on his assistant who was polishing her nails at that moment. Christian picked up the nail polish bottle and painted the entire sole of the model in red. That’s how the emblematic Louboutin shoe was born.

That exact shoe took over American pop culture. It shows up – quite indiscreetly – in a lot of television series, movies, songs, and often walks on red carpets.

In 2012, Christian Louboutin turned to court when the luxury brand Yves Saint Laurent came up with a high-heeled shoe with an entirely red sole in their collection. Finally, 18 months later, both brands got what they wanted. The court determined that Louboutin has the right to protect his intellectual property of the red sole, and other brands can only sell shoes with a red sole if the entire shoe is red. Yves Saint Laurent on the other hand got to keep the shoe in their collection, because it was entirely red.

Source:

Based on materials from Christian Louboutin’s official website and the L’Officiel edition