7 Facts about Christian Louboutin
They come in many different designs, usually they are very high and the all have one thing in common: a famous red sole. Let’s explore the 7 facts you absolutely have to know about Christian Louboutin.
You can also watch my video here:
1. The Famous Red Sole Was an Accident
The red sole which is so iconic today was not planned from the beginning, it happened almost accidentally. In 1992, Louboutin was assessing prototypes and overall, he was quite satisfied with a pair of black high heels, but something was missing: they felt a bit clunky, not very hic or elegant. They looked good on the sketch, but in real life, they did not look great. In real life the sole was black, but on the sketch there was a colourful element.[1]
Louboutin looked up from his desk and saw his assistant painting her nails in a bright red shade (isn’t it funny, an office where you can casually paint your nails?). Louboutin asked for the polish but she replied, “Please wait, I want to finish first.” She had just finished paintin two of her nails when Louboutin grabbed the small bottle. He started to paint the sole and used it all up. It is unknown how happy the assistant was with the fact that she had to walk around with unfinished fingernails, but maybe the fact that she helped to created a brand trademark made up for it in the long-run. And it worked: The red detail made the shoe appear elegant. The brand’s signature was born.[2]
An icon even under water – the red sole of the Louboutin high heels
Why did this red sole become so popular? According to Louboutin it was a simple reason: In the 1990s, French women were not big fans of colour, they preferred black. But at the same time, they wore red on their lips or on their nails. Louboutin recalled a conversation with a lady who claimed she did not like colours and when he pointed out her red fingernails, she said “But red is more than a colour”. According to Louboutin, red always works. Similarly, the Louboutin sole adds just the right touch of colour. If we look into the meaning of the colour right, we could take it further and say that it stands for “passion, power, sensuality, love, vitality, and a certain stylish insouciance à la française”[3], the French carelessness, or maybe we should say liberty? And his shoes should empower you to feel exactly that.[4]
2. Louboutin Became a Shoe Designer by Accident
When Christian Louboutin grew up, he spent a lot of time at the Palais de la Porte Dorée. which was near his home. Children from the arrondissement could visit for free, therefore, his parents frequently sent him to the museum. This is were he first saw high heels: He noticed a sign with a high heel which was crossed out in red – no high heels were allowed at the museum. The reason was that the shoes of the 1950s and 1960s had a steel cap at the end of the heel which could damage the precious floor mosaics. The young Christian was fascinated and started drawing shoes. When adults asked him, “What would you like to become when you grow up,” he answered that he wanted to draw shoes – not because this was really his wish, he just noticed that they stopped asking him annoying questions if he gave them this answer. He did not even know that there was a profession like that.[5]
Only later did he discover a book about Roger Vivier, the famous French shoe designer, and then he knew that this was what he wanted to do. In the early 1980s, he assembled a portfolio and showed it around the top couture houses. He started to work for Charles Jourdan and worked as a freelance designer for a few houses. Some may say fate played a role, because Louboutin ended up working for Vivier in 1988, maybe it is just proof of his passion and perserverence. Vivier was already 80 years old at the time and Louboutin worked on an exhibition with him. He soon realized he did not want to work for anybody else but himself. But he did not immediately start a shoe business, he worked in landscape design and worked in parks and gardens. One day, he visited a friend who owned a gallery who asked him about his shoes – everybody knew about the thousands of sketches he had drawn by then. This friend also told him that a shop space had just opened up nearby. He told his two best friends about the encounter and one of them, Bruno Chambelland, said, “This is what we do, we rent it and turn your sketches into shoes and sell them.”[6]
This is exactly what they did. Louboutin said in his documentary “In the Footsteps of Christian Louboutin” that he was so happy to see his sketches come to life. He did not care if they sold the shoes, if someone like them, it was great but otherwise he did not care. He did not have much money, but he was happy, business was not his interest. He was lucky that he had Bruno who took over the business-side. For two years, they had been making losses and when Bruno told him they had reached break-even, which meant they did not make losses anymore, Louboutin was surprised. “You should have told me,” he said but his friend had not because he needed Louboutin to be creative. The duo is still working together and are the majority owners of the business. In 2021, Exor, who is also the owner of Ferrari amongst others, acquired a 24%-stake in the company.[7]
3. The Kate Shoe Has a Celebrity Godmother
One of the biggest Louboutin-fans was Kate Moss, she was often seen in the signature shoe with the red sole. As a tribute to her, Christian Louboutin decided to design high heels for this It Girl. In 2012, the “Kate” was launched and it was very much inspired by Kate Moss’s lifestyle. As cited on the Louboutin-website says, the Kate is “a mix of rock’n’roll and romance, a mix of leather and lace”[8]. The Kate knows how to navigate the cool underground parties as well as posh sit-down dinners because she has friends in all kinds of social stratas.[9]
Kate Moss, the godmother of the Kate shoe
At first sight, the Kate looks simple, but it is complex when you look closely. Because of its simplicity, imperfections would be revealed immediately, there is no embellishment to distract from it. The Kate was an immediate success and now comes in many variations and different heights. It was followed by the “So Kate”, a higher version with a 120 mm heel, a year later. In 2022, the “Sporty Kate” was added to the Kate family which has a heel of 85 mm. Currently, the Kate is sold with a heel height of 55 mm, 85 mm, 100 mm and 120 mm via the Louboutin-website. There have been over 500 variations of the Kate, over 330,000 pairs have been sold since its launch in 2012. And Kate Moss is not the only fan: Zendaya owns 12 pairs and for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, Louboutin created a range of custom and existing silhouettes.[10]
4. Beauty over Comfort
It is no secret that Louboutin shoes stand for beauty and fashion rather than comfort. The designer is frequently being criticised for that, some even say he “tortures” women. But Louboutin himself does not seem to be bothered by that. In his documentary he said – I am quoting along the lines of what he said, “Think of the word comfort and then draw the shoe which comes to mind. You will get an orthopaedic shoe.”[11][12]
According to Louboutin, the drawing comes first – if he thought about the technical aspects, he would not be able to be creative. Very often, he came up with designs where the shoemakers told him they were not possible – his Décolleté shoe is one example. But then they tried and experimented together and made it possible. Louboutin also says that he is well aware that he works within the “field of the unnecessary”. According to him, we sometimes need the unnecessary to let us dream, to escape. In his documentary, he told the story of a customer who came into his store when he himself was still selling the shoes. She looked at a pair of blush pink crepe shoes with feathers. Crepe is extremely delicate, it can get dirty so easily and it is very difficult to clean. She looked at the shoes and said, “This is so unnecessary, this is exactly what I need.” Maybe she needed something to dream.[13]
A shoe may be unnecessary for some, but it can have a big impact. Louboutin says that the shoes only touch the soles of a woman, but they carry the whole body, the whole nature or essence of a woman’s character and let it shine. His aim is to create beauty – not necessarily perfection; he always strives to improve. Louboutin uses a cartoon-analogy to illustrate how obsessed he is with shoes: He says he is a bit like Obelix, the cartoon character who loves to eat and imagines everything as wild boars, his favourite food. Similarly, Louboutin imagines everything as shoes.[14]
5. Louboutin Designed Men’s Shoes Long before the Official Launch of First His Men’s Collection
Christian Louboutin is inextricably linked with the stiletto. But did you know that for a very long time he has been designing shoes – already long before he officially launched a men’s collection in 2009? A major impulse for launching his men’s collection was his collaboration with the pop star Mika. The two had one thing in common: Both of them grew up with three sisters and they saw the joy in their faces when they put on their favourite shoes. Mika wanted to have the same feeling on stage and asked Louboutin if he could create shoes for Mika’s tour. This request started the inspiration for a full collection – the red soles could now be worn by men.[15]
6. The Nudes Collection as a Sociological Phenomenon
Louboutin came up with a collection of nude high heels – “nude” meaning “skin-coloured”. He was about to present the collection, when one of his employees who was black passed by and sighed really loudly. Louboutin was startled. At first, he was upset and later on talked to her: “Why are you sighing when I’m talking with buyers,” he asked. She replied, “There are things which annoy me. ‘Nude” is not my skintone.” Louboutin was stunned, he had completely overlooked this. He apologized and increased the number of skin tones to a broader shade spectrum. Later on, the shoe was covered in a magazine – not a fashion magazine which analysed the shoe from a sociological perspective and soon further articles were published praising the collection for its inclusivity. Louboutin received a lot of credit for this, but the person who deserves credit as well was this brave employee who dared to speak up and tell her boss that she and many other people were not represented by his design.[16]
Spectrum of the Nudes collection
7. Inspired by Adventures
Christian Louboutin has a big passion for travelling. Already in his teens, he travelled to Egypt and also spent a year in India. Louboutin takes his inspiration from nature, especially plants, but also from foreign countries and cultures. These sources of inspiration are very obvious in many of his designs. Two collections exemplify this passion particularly well: The first one is his work with his friend and Indian designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee. The two designers had met by accident at Sabyasachi’s store in Mumbai and after that, Louboutin created the shoes for some of Sabyasachi’s runway shoes. In 2015 and 2016, they created a limited edition of shoes together and the one who is still very special is the 2017 collection: Louboutin travelled to Sabyasachi’s atelier in Kolkata and they turned leftover fabric from garments such as saris into eclectic shoes.[17]
Design from one of several collaborations with Indian designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee
My most favourite collaboration the Loubhoutan collection in 2019 where he collaborated Bhutanese artist. Loubhoutan is a word play in French of “Louboutin” and “Bhoutan”, Bhutan. The shoes featured big platforms with wooden carving inspired by Bhutanese art and architecture. Louboutin had first travelled to Bhutan in 2012 and was fascinated not only by its landscape but also by its tradition. In an interview with W Magazine he said that a lot of people think that tradition is something outdated. But in Bhutan, traditions do not hold back modernity. This collection is exactly that: a beautiful mix of tradition and modernity.[18]
Design from the Loubhoutan collection 2020.
Footnotes
[1] Christian Louboutin 2025, Louboutin & Garouste 2020.
[2] ibid.
[3] Christian Louboutin 2025.
[4] Christian Louboutin 2025, Louboutin & Garouste 2020.
[5-10] ibid.
[11] Louboutin & Garouste 2020.
[12] Christian Louboutin 2025, Louboutin & Garouste 2020.
[13-16] ibid.
[17] British Vogue 2025, Christian Louboutin 2025, Louboutin & Garouste 2020, The International News 2025, Vogue India 2025.
Christian Louboutin 2025, Louboutin & Garouste 2020, W Magazine 2025.
Sources
British Vogue, EXCLUSIVE: Louboutin Wants The World To See His New Collaboration, Scarlett Conlon, published on 3 October 2017, last accessed on 5 February 2025.
Christian Louboutin Official Website, last accessed on 5 February 2025.
Christian Louboutin & Olivier Garouste, In the Footsteps of Christian Louboutin, documentary, ARTE GEIE, Macassar Production, 2020.
The International News, Sabyasachi and Louboutin join forces, published on 9 October 2017, last accessed on 5 February 2025.
Vogue India, Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Christian Louboutin kick off their world tour together, Scarlett Conlon, published on 4 October 2017, last accessed on 5 February 2025.
W Magazine, Christian Louboutin Brings Collaboration with Bhutanese Student Artisans to New York City, published on 19 December 2019, last accessed on 5 February 2025.
Sources Title Image
Christian Louboutin Official Website
Disclaimer
This article is based on the personal, views, experiences and research of the author, no fees were received by the organisations and people mentioned above. All information as of the date of publishing/updating.
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