Interview: Christian Louboutin

To mark the opening of his new boutique, the famous shoe designer talks to Danielle Radojcin about high heels, Hollywood and Suri Cruise.

Blame Oprah Winfrey. Because of her show, perhaps the biggest shoe myth since Cinderella and her glass slipper unfolded via the web: that Christian Louboutin, the ne plus ultra of celebrity cobblers, had been commissioned from on high by no less than Mrs Tom Cruise with a very special request: to design a pair of shoes for little Suri. The bloggers were mad for it. Interview continues below...

It was rubbish, of course. "I noticed a lot of people were telling me about it," says Louboutin, who confesses to never using the internet except for emailing, "but I have never been commissioned to do any shoes for Suri at all. I did design a pair of shoes for a friend and her daughter," he offers by way of explanation, "and the journalist interviewing me for the Oprah Winfrey show I appeared on commented that maybe I could do shoes for Suri Cruise. And I just smiled. I have never even met Katie Holmes (Holmes did, however, wear a pair of his blue Lola patent pumps to the Met Costume Institute gala last May).

Such is the power of the internet. And such is the fame of Christian Louboutin: he now ranks alongside names such as Agent Provocateur and Gucci as fashion brands your boyfriend might recognise (read: it's sexy without being trashy).

Hollywood maketh the man

So how did a boy from the Paris banlieues with a fascination for high heels turn into one of the most famous names in fashion?

There's the celebrity factor, yes (which Hollywood actress hasn't been photographed in a pair?). And there's Sex And The City, in which Carrie is a fan. There's the collaborations, with Yves Saint Laurent (for his final show in 2002), and most recently Richard Nicoll and Todd Lynn, among others. And of course there's the unmistakeable scarlet sole, his trademark, which came about after he borrowed a colleague's red nail varnish to lacquer the base of a shoe he was working on because he thought it needed a little something.

Most significantly there's the man himself, whose obsession with showbiz and the stage goes way back to when he would watch the showgirls at the Folies Bergère, fascinated by the way they managed to walk so gracefully on their vertiginous heels. "What's always interested me is people doing great things on stage. Stage people." (His favourite artist is Tina Turner, who, of course, favours a Louboutin heel while performing.)
  Christian Louboutin with the Olsen twins

A fashionable life

After a stint on the Parisien party circuit and hanging around the Folies, he completed an apprenticeship with Charles Jourdan, before going freelance for houses including Chanel and Maud Frizon. (He says he learned the most from Jourdan and Roger Vivier, whom he went to work for in 1988.) By 1992 he had opened his flagship boutique in Paris.

Now he has outlets all over the world. We meet in his newest, on London's chi-chi Mount Street, which sits alongside the likes of Marc Jacobs and Balenciaga. He is wearing a blazer over a red cashmere jumper, teamed with jeans and - startlingly - a pair of fluorescent green Converse low tops, which he picked up "in some shop in Japan". His earnest manner belies an impish streak (in an online video interview, he snaps the journalist's bra strap - much to her delight). Like all his boutiques, he designed the interior himself, with a plush red carpet and luxurious green divans. Along the walls are small white niches deliberately reminiscent of a dovecote, where the shoes nestle and preen before the adoring caresses - and sighs - of the clientele.

Lynch and Fetish

Louboutin's love of Hollywood is palpable, especially the dark, sexy underbelly so seductively portrayed in the films of David Lynch. This shared aesthetic brought the two together for a collaboration on Fetish, a series of photographs taken by Lynch featuring two dancers, naked save for their extreme footwear, which Louboutin designed especially, and the most striking of which is the joined-at-the-heel Siamese shoe. The models, chosen by Louboutin, are two dancers from the Crazy Horse, a burlesque club in Paris. "David told me, ‘You choose the girls, the only thing I ask is, no bones. Curves.'" Which, he said, "totally made sense" to him: he is obsessed with the S-shape created by the line of a woman's body when wearing heels.

As well as their shared attraction to curvy seductresses, luscious red lips and the allure of night-time - Louboutin was also drawn to the director's work ethic: "What I love about David is there is a lot of codes. The colours are very specific, there is a light, à la Lynch. I like codes, I have to say. It's what you call a general aesthetic. It's pretty rare, and I do hope that I'm a bit like that." He also loves Almodóvar and Wong Ka-wai for this reason, and says he would like to have the chance to work with them in the future. 
  The designer with Dita Von Teese

Slowing down

It's not all about surface attractions, though. His technical know-how is evident in the way he talks, "like a doctor", about what a well-crafted heel can do for a woman; the way her centre of gravity changes, giving her a sexier gait; the way it slows her down. "I remember selling some shoes to a woman who said, ‘Since wearing your shoes, I love my street! I walk slower, and take everything in.' Running through life means nothing to me. You've got to take the time to see what is around you. You will have more experiences and more stories."

So what's next for the man who has conquered the fashion world and Hollywood? "I do have a new project, but as I'm a bit superstitious I never discuss it. I mean, I am always constantly working on my next collection anyway - that's the thing that I like to do, but it's my only job, and when you have a job, you try to do it well, non?" -Danielle Radojcin

 
See a selection from Christian Louboutin's autumn/winter 08 collection

See pictures of celebrities wearing Christian Louboutin 

 

Share this Print this