The art of Christian Louboutin’s shoes

Associated media

Gilly Turney visits first UK retrospective at London’s Design Museum celebrates the career of Christian Louboutin, French shoe designer extraordinaire….

Celebrated among his devotees for re-inventing the stiletto (his heels are among the highest, at 6.3ins (160mm), French shoe designer Christian Louboutin has pushed the boundaries of high fashion shoe design and his trademark glossy red sole has become something of a cult in the world of fashion.

Worn by some of the world’s most beautiful and famous women, his shoes incorporate a strong element of artistry and theatricality, with jewelled straps, exotic feathers and bows, sexy patent and mirror finish leathers, luxurious suedes, elaborate embroidery and embellishments. His handcrafted designs are a whimsical mix of fantasy and fairy tale inspired by performance, cabaret and the showgirl. One of his fans is the burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese, whose three-dimensional hologram performance is a scene stealer at this retrospective.

While he also designs a limited range of lower-heeled styles, and this season a new men’s collection, it is for his dressier, ultra-glamorous evening shoes that Louboutin is most well known and which feature prominently in the exhibition. Drawing on the designer’s perhaps dubious assertion that ‘every woman wants to be a showgirl’, the curators have created a unique ‘show’ experience. The shoes are exhibited in a seductive red and black setting incorporating a fairground carousel, a helter-skelter, a shadow theatre, and a re-creation of his Paris atelier.

Born in Paris in 1964, the only son of a cabinetmaker, Louboutin, brought up in the 12th Arrondissement with his three sisters, was a rebellious child. After being expelled from school three times he ran away from home at the age of 12, whereupon his indulgent mother allowed him to leave school, move out and live at a friend’s house.

It was at about this time that his fascination with shoes began – always sketching shoes and ignoring his academic studies. His small amount of formal training included drawing and the decorative arts at the Academie d’Art Roederer. It was while visiting the African and Oceanic Art Museum in Paris that Louboutin was struck by a sign on the wall – a strange drawing of a woman’s shoe with a sharp heel slashed out in a red outline – forbidding women wearing stiletto heels from entering the building, for fear of damaging the wood flooring.

This image stayed in his mind and he later used the idea in his designs. ‘I wanted to defy that’, he said. ‘I wanted to create something that broke rules and made women feel confident and empowered.’

He launched his career by hanging around stage doors in Paris and taking an internship at the Folies Bergère music hall at the age of 16. He then freelanced as a shoe designer for many couture houses, including Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, and Maud Frizon.

In 1989 Louboutin turned his back on shoe design to work as a landscape gardener, but missing shoes he returned to the business. He set up his own Christian Louboutin label in 1992 and opened his first boutique in Paris, with Princess Caroline of Monaco among his first customers. (A journalist spotted her in the store and the ensuing editorial coverage hugely raised Louboutin’s profile). The store soon caught the attention of Parisian socialites visiting neighbouring antique dealers and, as his reputation rose, his clientele increased, and included royalty, society, film and rock stars.

By the mid 1990s he was creating footwear for both the ready-to-wear and couture collections of Jean Paul Gaultier, Chloe, Azzaro, Givenchy, Lanvin, Diane Von Furstenburg, and Victor & Rolf. In 1996 he received the first of two FFANY (Fashion Footwear Association of New York) Awards from the International Fashion Group.

In 2002 he created a shoe for the emotional finale of Yves Saint Laurent’s ‘Farewell to Haute Couture’ show. Referred to as the ‘Christian Louboutin for Yves Saint Laurent 1962–2002’, it was the only time that Saint Laurent associated his name with that of another designer.

The following year Louboutin launched his first handbag line, then in 2007, in collaboration with film director David Lynch, he exhibited a collection of shoes for a ‘Fetish’ exhibition of seductive one-off objects and fetish items, photographed by Lynch, at La Gallerie Du Passage, in Paris.

Christian Louboutin has dominated the Luxury Institute’s annual Luxury Brand Status index since the mid 2000s, winning the Most Prestigious Women’s Shoes Award four years running, from 2007 to 2010. In 2008 New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology mounted a comprehensive retrospective of his work, and later that year he won his second FFANY Award.

March 2012 saw the 20th anniversary of the opening of his first small store in Paris. Today the brand can by found in 50 eponymous boutiques in 46 countries, some in upmarket department stores such as New York’s Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Barneys, and London’s Harvey Nichols and Selfridges.

His designs helped bring stilettos back into fashion in the 1990s and 2000s. ‘I wanted to make a women look sexy, beautiful, to make her legs look as long as [they] can’. His clients include many celebrities – Diane Von Fursternburg, Carla Bruni, Madonna, Catherine Deneuve, Gwyneth Paltrow, Victoria Beckham, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jennifer Lopez, Dita Von Teese. His single biggest client is the American novelist Danielle Steel, who is reputed to own over 6000 pairs and is said to have purchased up to 80 pairs at a time when shopping at his stores.

The current London exhibition surveys Louboutin’s career to date and showcases 20 years of designs and inspiration from stilettos to lace-up boots, studded sneakers and bejewelled pumps. Drawing from the designer’s personal archive, the exhibition presents his shoe designs, referencing the origins of the trademark red sole through to the latest collections, including the new men’s range and handbags.

It examines the many sources of his creativity and focuses on the handcrafted shoe and one-off designs showing his innovative ideas, forms and materials. There is a special section dedicated to the shoes designed for the ‘Fetish’ exhibition, and an exploration of Louboutin’s design process, showing every stage in how a shoe is constructed from the initial drawing to the first prototype, to production at the factory.

At the beginning of her 3D hologram performance Dita Von Teese morphs out of an oversized Louboutin shoe, dances around a stage, before merging back into a glittering stiletto. From the bejewelled purple velvet ‘Eugenie’, to the exotic feathered ‘Pluminette’, the animal print ‘Bridget’ ankle boot, or spike-heeled red leather-soled ‘Engin Spikes’, the display seems to claim that there are no shoes like Louboutin Shoes.