Christian Louboutin

http://www.christianlouboutin.fr/
There is only one shoe designer whose footwear is instantly recognisable just from the soles. What makes Christian Louboutin's shoes stand out, besides their exquisite quality, fine craftsmanship, sexy high heels and quirky designs, is the glossy nail-varnish red sole that has become his trademark. "I want to make shoes that are like jewels," Louboutin explains. "Shoes are more than just an accessory; they are an extension of a woman," And when that woman just happens to be Diane von Furstenberg, Celine Dion, and Madonna, Louboutin fans one and all, he is surely on to a good thing.
~From net-a-porter.com
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His name is acclaimed in the most exclusive circles. His shoes are worn on some of the world's most glamorous feet. Catherine Deneuve. Princess Caroline of Monaco. His art contains the essence of Paris, ranging from the esthetics of the Left Bank to those of the Right. Louboutin shoes, whether created for la vie de bohème or a box at L'Opera, are the knockout touch of the most stunning couture outfit.
Early on, Christian Louboutin drew attention by creating shoes using crushed beer cans as heels. No longer. Today, Louboutin shoes speak of the soul and the siren song of romantic Paris.
~From fashionfinds.com
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Inspired by the music halls of Paris (where dancers wore only feathers and stilettos), Louboutin began designing shoes with a similar whimsical flair. Some of his finest creations, all with signature red soles, include high-heeled jeweled flip-flops, multimetallic leather slingbacks, and feather T-strap sandals that became a conversation piece on Sex and the City and are considered collector's items.
Though their styles are remarkably different, Carmen Electra, Amanda Peet, and Ashley Olsen all have one fashion fancy in common—they adore Christian Louboutin shoes. Whether stilettos, espadrilles, pumps, or flats, this designer's foot-candy is the most coveted accessory in Hollywood. Hardly a red-carpet event goes by without an oh-so-subtle flash of the signature red sole. Want your own pair? Better hit the stores soon—many styles are already sold out.
~From glam.com
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Christian Louboutin (born 1963) is a well known French shoe designer. He includes Princess Caroline of Monaco and Catherine Deneuve among his friends.
Christian Louboutin was interested in women's fashion since he was a small child. In 1979, as he was walking alongside the streets of Paris, he noticed a billboard that instructed women tourists not to scratch the wooden floor in front of the Museum of Oceanic Art.
Louboutin felt personally bothered by this sign, and, as a consequence, he would draw shoes with compressed buckles and with soles. He admits to having spent a lot of time as a teenager drawing these types of shoes in his school notebooks. These shoes would become the base of Louboutin's sales as a designer.
Later on, Louboutin began attending parties and dance halls in Paris, offering his shoes to women at these events and venues. Most of the ladies rejected his shoes, claiming to have no money.
Louboutin then decided to attend various designing schools, such as Chanel's and Saint Laurent's.
Louboutin later opened a boutique shop in Paris; his store became distinguished not only because of his clientele, but also because he offered free coffee to shoppers. Such other sellers such as American company Neiman Marcus began to sell Louboutin's designs. Louboutin shoes also have a trademark red leather sole, making them instantly recognizable.
Louboutin, who has been interviewed by fashion reporters such as Jacques Brunel, has seen his celebrity expand to such places like Monte Carlo, Singapore and the United States, among others.
~From Wikipedia
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If the "up-and-coming young man" is a familiar figure in the world of fashion, few have soared as quickly - and to such heights - as Christian Louboutin. Unknown four years ago, this footwear specialist's name is now mispronounced in virtually every language by the swarms of elegant women who, from Los Angeles to Paris, Singapore to Monte Carlo, make and destroy reputations.
He has a boutique in Paris and another in New York, stacks of press articles and legions of imitators. And yet, no established house or family enterprise has put into orbit the twenty-nine-year-old designer who is on first-name terms with Caroline of Monaco and Catherine Deneuve and who, like his mentor Roger Vivier, adorns the feet of the wealthiest and wittiest of this world.
It all started when, as a child, he paused in front of a sign at the Museum of Oceanic Art in Paris. It showed a stiletto heel crossed out by two thick lines, reminding women visitors not to scratch the wooden floor. "It haunted me," he admits with the excited eccentricity that makes his company as charming as his shoes. "What purpose could such a fine, sharp heel have other than to prove you could create the unreal from something real? I spent most of my school years reproducing it on my exercise books and desktops."
Later, he immersed himself in the whirlwind of parties resounding throughout Paris, turning his obsession with shoes towards the music hall: "Besides feathers, the dancers wore virtually nothing except shoes. And it's the combination of shoes and the naked body that interests me. The photographer Helmut Newton also sensed this universe: none of the nudes in his shots wear flat shoes. So, in the meantime, I went round the music halls with my sketches of sandals. 'Sorry, darling,' they said 'we've no money...'" And so Christian Louboutin had to go back to school, to learn all the basics at Charles Jourdan, Maud Frizon, Chanel, Saint Laurent.
His first steps were to open a boutique near the Place des Victoires, in Paris. "Its statue of Louis XIV," notes Christian Louboutin, "is wearing one of my favourite shoes: a sort of reworked leather sandal." The shoes on display inside his boutique look more like colourful, exotic birds, caught inside the pigeonholes of a peculiar dovecote. "I like women to see my shoes as objects of beauty, as gems outside the realm of fashion, with their own universe. Shoes are not an accessory; they're an attribute."
With their purple beaks and gold buttons, compressed buckles and soles inlaid with petals, they are not easily forgotten. "With Louboutins and a pair of jeans or an evening gown, you're dressed," says the designer, adding: "Women express themselves through their shoes" Christian Louboutin's clients have talent. When they come to him, they do not content themselves with a cup of coffee: they comment and advise They admit what appeals to them, what feels comfortable to wear "My boutique is a luxury that maintains that link."
Christian Louboutin no longer has a universe: he has put everything into his shoes. Styles range from Louis XV to Georgian and Oriental... Wedgwood porcelain... The deep purple of a periwinkle, the pale green of a moss, the bark of a birch and the delicacies of organised nature. He scribbles. If he dreams, he draws the dream. The year's 120 or so new models will sell in tens of thousands of pairs. But this enfant terrible no longer wants to be seen as the wizard of the eccentric. "Today, I'm more preoccupied by the overall line than an eye-catching detail. I draw freely, then reduce. And I evolve: certain models, like the sandal with the golden strap decorated with bows, are a synthesis of several shoes." Season after season, "the boy who drew shoes" became "the man with the gold leaf heels", "the man with the Guinness beer can heels", "the man with the shoes that say Love" (two letters per shoe) Today, "the incredible Mr Louboutin" is the man with the red soles. "I wanted to break the dullness of black or beige soles. And present a 'finished' object. All my soles are red." A trademark which he hopes will, as usual, be imitated...
~Jacques Brunel
CL Boutique in Paris
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On the shelves of his tiny store (21 Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 75001 Paris) at the corner of a Belle Époque glassed-in gallery, Louboutin’s creations are on display: classic pumps scooping round the toes and poised on a thin 130-millimeter, or 5-inch, heel; sandals with playful pompoms where sturdy straps cross at the front; or operatic effects with lacy leather rings, echoing the years that the 13-year-old Louboutin went round Paris music halls showing his shoe sketches.
“Women don’t buy shoes - they look at themselves and their legs in silhouette - I saw that with the dancers,” says Louboutin, 41, whose nightclub subjects wore little beside their footwear.
There is a luxurious, oriental glamour to the boutique, where a curtain decorated with arabesques, mirrors with curlicue frames and a decorative screen bring a touch of the exotic. Born in Brittany but, he believes, with Tahitian blood in the family history, Louboutin has a penchant for the Middle East and has a vacation home in Egypt, on the Nile at Luxor.
How did Louboutin get from gawping at dancers to fitting his creations on classy beauties such as Princess Caroline of Monaco, Catherine Deneuve and Queen Rania of Jordan, not to mention Hollywood princesses Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow?
He passed through two iconic French houses, Charles Jourdan and Roger Vivier, where he helped organize a retrospective and handled shoes with a history of being created for Marlene Dietrich in performance, for the coronation of the shah of Iran and for Christian Dior haute couture.
“It was working with Jourdan and Roger Vivier that made me realize that shoe design was a real métier,” Louboutin says.
Louboutin can trace back his original creative “click.”
“As a child, I was taken to the musée des océans, and I saw a sign of a stiletto with two thick lines through it - and it haunted me,” says Louboutin, claiming that his schoolbooks were filled with drawings of the “no stiletto heels in here” sign. The images of Helmut Newton and the wild clubbing years in the 1980s at the Paris Le Palace cemented his fascination with shoes. Maybe it is significant that, apart from the splash of vermilion, the colors tend to be rich purples, smoky blues and moss greens, as if captured in Toulouse-Lautrec’s night world.
But Louboutin also makes daywear, from calf-hugging flat boots to platform-soled espadrilles that he encourages summer brides to wear, rather than spindly heels in which they cannot dance the night away.
“Luxury should not be anti-progress,” he says, referring to women’s freedom. “My idea of progress is to make shoes not higher, but ever finer.”
~written by Suzy Menkes
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These precious, red-soled Parisian shoes aren’t for bashful dressers. They come in patterned fabrics, clear vinyl, and textured skin as often as in regular old leather. We like the satin pump covered in crystal and embroidery and the satin peep-toe with a brooch. The meatpacking district store is no bigger than the pint-size uptown branch, but caters to a younger, funkier clientele with firecracker-red carpets, Lucite shelves, and ornate eighteenth-century picture frames for handbag display. Highlights include neon wedges with pink metallic straps, cork platforms with linen straps, and linen peep-toe pumps with lizard trim.
~Profile from NY Shopping
CL Boutique in New York, NY
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When notoriously comfort-oriented Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen started teetering around L.A. and NYC on four-and-a-half inch heels, it was clear that Christian Louboutin shoes were hot. If that were not enough of an indication, every time they are posted on high-end retailers' websites such as Bergdorf Goodman, the shoes--whether they are patent leather, cork-soled or wooden—sell out immediately. It does not matter, however, if you are an Olsen twin, Kate Moss or even Kelly Ripa--being well-heeled means wearing Louboutin.
Christian Louboutin, although not quite a household name, is synonymous with exquisite footwear. It may be slightly ostentatious, but Louboutin's execution of the platform espadrille and peep-toe pump, among others, makes the shoes luxuriously one of a kind. While Louboutins may appear to have suddenly arrived onto the fashion scene, that is not actually the case. According to the International Herald Tribune, Louboutin founded his eponymous line of shoes thirteen years ago after designing footwear for dancers. Evidently the flamboyance and provocative aspects of stage-wear stayed with Mr. Louboutin, as the shoes he designs reflect a slightly scandalous undertone--which, let's face it, is part of the allure.
So how does one create the aforementioned allure?
Louboutin shoes do more than just complete an outfit, they create the meaning behind it—perhaps in part because of Louboutin's inspiration by dancers (Dita Von Teese is among his favorites), but really the allure is due to the fact that Louboutin takes elements of costume and incorporates that into shoes women wear every day. Whether the details of the Louboutin are delicate and understated or, as in the case of the very popular (very high) heel seen on a number of celebrities, more substantial and pronounced, they exemplify sophistication. Louboutin has said, "'Women don't buy shoes--they look at themselves and their legs in silhouette--I saw that with the dancers'.” Indeed, the shoes not only act as adornment, they make the entire body a part of the design, making it alternately fluid, rigid, accessible, or aloof. In this way, the allure of such footwear becomes clear: it is not necessarily what stands before you, quite literally in the shoe, but the juxtaposition of the saucy shoe against an otherwise reserved appearance. As stated on Manolo's Shoe Blog, shoes "...can, in the hands of the master makers, truly be the art of the finest sort, the things that may bring us great joy through their beauty."
Louboutin boutiques in New York, Moscow, London and also Los Angeles, make it hard to keep a secret about how wonderful the shoes are. In addition to the Olsens, numerous other celebrities have been spotted wearing the shoes, all hoping to invoke the unusual glamour and sophistication of the line. That being said, Louboutin shoes are expensive. To love the design and own the design are two completely different things...
~From stylechronicles.com
"Well-Heeled: Christian Louboutin"
April 18, 2006