FASHION THE GODFATHER OF SOLE For Christian Louboutin’s passionate customers– Angelina Jolie, Lady Gaga, the Olsen twins, and Oprah, among others–his red-soled confections are far more than footwear, and their creator far more than a designer. For the shoe god himself, who recently completed a line of , the line between fashion and fetish is nearly invisible

BY VANESSA GRIGORIADIS

eep in the heart of conspic- dot dresses and chunky David Yurman ban- !oors, and the ambient trill of women com- uous consumption, in a gles, at to fête Louboutin, plimenting other women on their shoes. A 2.6-million-square-foot lux- the warm, quizzical 46-year-old king of the boutique party? Didn’t we replace these ury mall in Orange Coun- heel—the “new Manolo Blahnik,” according long ago with Art Basel and the Venice ty, there is, on a warm eve- to Visionaire co-founder Cecilia Dean—or, Biennale—places where similar fabulously ning last spring, a small as one Mercedes-coupe-driving, abundantly shod people stand around and look at art private party for Christian Louboutin. This is spray-tanned Louboutin devotee puts it, cut- they don’t completely understand? Maybe Da time in which every woman must whisper ting through the air with her French-manicured this is full circle, because on this night—just about her purchases and feel like Cinderella’s nails, “our shoe god!” one of a staggering number of nights that wicked stepsister for contemplating so gauche There’s something so 1999, so Sex and parties like this are thrown around the globe a desire as a thousand-dollar pair of leopard- the City about this scene, with the copious in Louboutin’s honor—we are celebrating a

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it is much, much more expensive. The Ma- declared bankruptcy to buy me his shoes.” been to make money,” he says. “And as far rie Antoinette, as it’s called, with teeny-tiny Her mom shrugs. “It’s no biggie,” she ex- as understanding #nancial issues, it is in embroidery throughout by Jean-François plains. “Bankruptcy just sits on your credit one ear and out the other in a very pathetic Lesage and a decorative ankle strap with report for a few years.” fashion, really.” He giggles. “I was at din- a painstakingly made-up porcelain face For a micro-second, Louboutin "icks his ner in London after the #nancial crisis hit, of the sovereign herself, costs $6,295. “I eyes to the ceiling and rolls them around. and everyone was talking about the credit was drinking a lot of wine at lunch with “It’s just shoes, you know,” he whispers, with crunch,” he tells me. “I said, ‘What’s “cred- Jean,” says Louboutin mischievously, “and a giggle. it crunch”? Is that a new gym?’ ” we thought we should do a series of shoes But it is, and it isn’t. Unlike most luxury brands, Loubou- named after di!erent queens: Drag queen? tin’s company remains independent and Drama queen?” The Anti-swag Mind Trick owner-operated. He says he doesn’t believe The women teeter toward the shoe, which f all the ways that one can identify in advertising or marketing, though he did is presented inside an enormous, faux-jewel- a Louboutin shoe—the slick Brian trademark the red sole in the U.S., in 2008, encrusted egg, as though it had sprung forth O De Palma heels, the wry humor, the and in the U.K., in 2009. Don’t mess with from a very chic chicken. hyper-femininity, the perilous prices—the the soles: Albert Elbaz, designer of Lanvin “These shoes make my heart sing a little easiest is by glimpsing his ingenious trade- and a close friend, found this out the hard bit,” says a brunette, clicking together her mark: the red sole. It turns out that the "ash way when he asked Louboutin to produce beige pumps. of red on the undercarriage of a woman’s a line for one of his early collections. “At the “It’s like … angels,” says a blonde in men- shoe is very sexy: “an invitation, a green time, I thought the red sole was too strong acingly high purple stilettos, studded with light,” as Louboutin puts it. It’s also a con- for my collection,” says Elbaz. “So I painted diamantés. venient way to identify the haves and have- them black—a great mistake! He almost “I’m going to buy them, but I’ll never nots. Remarkably, the designer says, his busi- killed me.” Louboutin also claims never to wear them,” says another, in turquoise heels ness grew by double digits during the retail have “pushed” celebrities into his shoes on with a poof of feathers cascading down the depression last year, and today he sells the red carpet. (Some celebrities receive a back. “I’ll keep them on my mantel. I don’t more than 340,000 pairs of shoes annually, discount at his stores, but he rarely gives want to hurt them.” with prices ranging from $495 to an amount shoes away.) “Whether you’re talking about Louboutin listens patiently as his cli- that he refuses to reveal. (Custom- made a celebrity or any female, the most impor- ents—“friends!”—coo and caw, his arms shoes, like one with a sole made en tirely of tant aspect of women is desire,” he says, his folded over a spotless white linen jacket, rubies, can rise into the high #ve #gures.) lips curling into a smile. “The woman needs “WHAT’S A ‘CREDIT CRUNCH’?”ASKED LOUBOUTIN. “IS THAT A NEW GYM?”

his wide brow unwrinkled, a Cheshire-cat Louboutin hatched the idea to redden to think: When can I have it? Ohhhh, I want grin playing over his lips. This isn’t how it the sole during his first collection, after it so badly, I can’t wait. If you take that usually works in fashion. It does not matter watching his assistant paint her nails with away from a woman, you take away a lot.” how many Marc Jacobs handbags a woman red polish. It was a decision nearly buys—Marc Jacobs is not gabbing with you without precedent. “Many Han Chinese his anti-swag mind trick has worked at a party. Karl Lagerfeld is not having din- women decorated the soles of the shoes incredibly well, and it’s nearly im- ner with you. Stella McCartney does not they hoped to be buried in with Buddhist T possible to name a high-wattage star want your company at a mani-pedi. But symbols so that they would make a good who hasn’t strutted around in Louboutin’s Louboutin is a special kind of designer. Per- impression in the afterlife,” says Elizabeth shoes. Angelina Jolie hardly ever walks a haps friend Mary-Kate Olsen says it best: Semmelhack, senior curator of the Bata red carpet without them. Naomi Campbell “When I was on the set of Full House, my Shoe Museum, in . Louboutin’s showed up to her court-ordered communi- favorite story was the Grimms’ fairy tale women are, however, much more con- ty service in his black leather stiletto . about a poor shoemaker who was visited cerned with this life. “Half of my women is a convert, along with Toni by elves that made his shoes in the middle want a shoe to make them look a little Morrison (“I cry at her books,” Louboutin of the night.” She laughs. “And when you tarty, and the other half are big tarts who says), Patti LaBelle (“Girl, I once knew a meet Christian, you realize a man like that want a shoe that looks classy,” he says. “I lady who painted her own soles red—she really exists. He is the shoemaker out of the think that in both cases the shoe completes was so pitiful,” she says), and Oprah, who fairy tale.” the woman, gives them the element they received 21 pairs of designer shoes, mostly It’s not all so G-rated: Louboutin’s acces- don’t have in themselves.” Louboutin’s, as a thank-you gift from Jessi- sibility is both part of his business plan and Louboutin has manufactured shoes un- ca after she appeared on her show part of a deep, fervently held desire to insert der his name since 1992, when he opened in 2007. Lady Gaga wears her nude pumps himself into the relationship a woman has a shop in with an investment of everywhere, and says archly, “The red soles with her most beloved phallic symbol—her $160,000. In a stroke of his usual good remind me it is very important to be consis- shoe. Though sometimes a lady’s shoe obses- luck, Princess Caroline of hap- tent in the work.” Christina Agui lera wore sion can get a little much, even for him. “I am pened to pass by during the #rst month, his shoes on her last tour, and Jennifer so devoted,” gushes a raven-haired 26-year- and he worked her appearance to whip up Lopez staked her musical comeback on a old in a skintight Dior dress, sidling up beside buzz. By the end of the year he will have song named after them. Ashley Olsen says Louboutin with her mother lingering behind. 32 boutiques all over the world—up from that Louboutins were the #rst adult heels “You know, I’ve run away from repo men in 19 in 2009—even if he claims not to care she and her sister wore, at 14. “We had his his shoes.” She leans in: “My mom has even much about spoils. “My goal has never brightly colored three-inch heels in every

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single color,” she says. “I loved them so one of his “shoe signings” in the white marble to select shoes for her prom. “I have seen much: they were sexy, but age-appropriate.” corridor of the same SoCal mall. At a shoe this hundreds of times,” says Louboutin signing, unlike a book signing, people actu- later, leaning in close. “The father comes The Gay Best Friend ally show up, and 300 women are already on into the store and says that he is there to ouboutin is the gay best friend not line by eight A.M., carrying their Louboutins buy shoes for his daughter’s !rst ball. He only to Hollywood stars: he loves in trembling hands, or sometimes plopping selects the shoe for her—always the same L all manner of stylish women, from them on top of baby car riages, waiting for kind of shoe, a peep toe with a medium Daphne Guinness to Princess Olga of him to write their names—or his—with a neon heel. The mother keeps saying the daughter Greece. “I could not say who my best friend Sharpie on their red soles. A black velvet rope can wear one of her old pair of heels, but is,” he demurs. “I would feel awful to say encircles the glass table at which he holds the father insists. He always pays cash that, because I would hurt a lot of people! court, a beige hat perched high on his head. for the shoes, too.” Louboutin giggles a lit- Everyone is like a sister.” He comes across The rule is one pair per woman at each sign- tle. “It is a nice ritual, you know, because as far younger than his years: at the disco- ing, but the wilier among the group are whip- the daughter does not get hurt, but what theque, he’s a #ashy, 100-beats-per-minute ping Louboutins o" their feet as well, and you’re seeing is that the father wants to AFTER VISITING RWANDA, LOUBOUTIN NOTED, “VIOLENT, BUT NICE OUTFITS ON THE MILITARY.”

dancer always on the hunt for a partner; he’s too nice to turn them away—except when be the first one to see his daughter in for exercise, he prefers the trapeze; and, the shoe isn’t clean. “Ugh, I cannot bear dirty heels—the !rst one to fuck the daughter.” with a shaky command of English, he is of- shoes,” he whispers as a blonde shakes a !lthy ten heard saying “Super-awesome!” when black in front of him. “If a shoe has Playing pleased. Yet he is also intensely Parisian, one scratch on it, I cannot even look at it.” or Louboutin, the !xation on women’s maintaining an old-world couturier’s atti- But this is a rare moment of snark, be- shoes began in childhood. He grew up tude toward handiwork and technology—he cause the rest of the day is taken up with F in Paris’s 12th Arrondissement, the does not know how to drive, can barely use Louboutin’s listening intently to each wom- youngest son of a housewife and a furniture- his iPhone, and started an e-mail account an’s trials and tribulations, from the very maker who designed prototypes for French only a few years ago. trivial—how she and her husband #ew from train interiors. He is much darker in skin Despite his protestations about caring lit- their second home in Cabo that morning tone, almost oddly so, than the rest of his tle for money, he is very good at spending it. (“You must come visit us!”) or postponed a family. His father was blond, and his mother His passion in life is travel, and he visits at post-collegiate trip to to meet him (“a and two sisters—his siblings are more than least a dozen countries a year, such as Rwan- whole three days!”)—to the intensely emo- a dec ade his senior—look like Snow White. da—“very violent, but quite nice out!ts on the tional, with stories about recent divorce and “For a long time, I thought I was adopted, mil itary”—and often picks up homes along the ways that his shoes helped her through but my mother told me it wasn’t so,” he says. the way. He owns a houseboat in that time by making her feel beautiful. She convinced him instead that one of her and a 13th-century château near Nor mandy, It is a long day, stretch- ancestors had slept with a black slave on the and, more recent ly, ing on until 10 P.M. Some- family’s long-ago voyage from Britannia. For he pur chased an one faints. Loubou- reasons he does not know, he says, his father 11th-century home tin’s chapeau begins to never spoke to him, except once, when he in Aleppo, Syria. wilt. Then some thing taught him to carve a piece of wood. “Ba- “Christian is my soul grabs his eye, and he sically, I grew up in a harem,” he explains. brother,” says Diane begins to smile again: “Women have no secrets from me.” von Furstenberg. a father, with his teen- As with the women at home, little Loubou- “For most of us, our age daughter, has ap- tin was doted on in school, where he often friends come from peared in the boutique had the best marks in his class. When he school or early on in was nine, he recalls, a teacher, noticing that your life. Christian Louboutin had become

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with an X hung on the wall, because high other in a red-carpet gown, and a few in vari- Louis Benech, in a small apartment next to heels were not allowed on the wood !oors. “I ous states of undress: one in a negligée, an- his o$ces, without a kitchen. (He has been became a bit glued to that sign,” says Loubou- other in a belly-dancing out"t, and a third in renovating a nearby penthouse for more tin. “It was the 70s, and no one wore shoes a catsuit matched with one of his “It shoes.” than "ve years; “It’s very La Bohème, for me with such a heel. I thought, How could some- After an assistant brings him a large cup of to stare out the window at the rain and cry,” one make a drawing of a shoe that does not Starbucks espresso (“What is this, for 10 peo- he jokes.) And in Parabiago, a shoemaking exist and tell people not to wear them? It was ple?” he asks), he caresses the sole of a Barbie center 15 miles outside , he has built the "rst time I got in touch with my imagina- foot. “Look how super-high the arch is—it’s a modern apartment on the top !oor of his tion.” From this point on, lost in his dreams, real ly quite lovely,” he says. Then he throws a factory, with hand-cranked windows, !oors he obsessively sketched pictures of shoes in pained look toward the miniature Louboutin- of smooth concrete, and red lacquered sur- the margins of all his notebooks. “For me, shoe prototypes. “They are too big, much faces, the same color as his soles. “I love looking at a foot is almost like being on too large,” he declares, shaking his head. sleeping above my factory,” he says. “All LSD,” he says. “The foot for me is like star- In fact, it turns out that everything is too night, I can lie there and dream of shoes.” ing at an ear—there is so much to see.” big. As he walks down the aisle of prototypes, By 14, he was fully immersed in the Paris he stops at each one, insisting on revisions: n a recent morning, a maid launders fashion scene, dressing up in a look he calls the gown must be “much lower in the back, his clothes in the Parabiago apart- “transsexual punk” and going out to night- so we can see the top of her ass—the crack.” O ment as he descends a spiral stair- clubs such as the Palace—“maybe not on He moves on to the Barbie in a negligée. case to the factory’s second floor, where a Monday,” but almost every other night. “This must be shorter, tighter,” he says. he arranges dozens of sketches for the next Whenever he came home late with a new “And maybe without the bra and panties season’s shoes. Sitting at a desk "lled with friend, Louboutin would whistle as he ap- underneath?” artifacts from his recent trips—a mask from proached the door, “then my mother would “Well, it is Barbie,” says a Mattel design- Bali, a picture of La from San “ABOUT 3,000 WOMEN HAVE 500 PAIRS,” HE SAYS. “BUT THOSE AREN’T THE BIGGEST CUSTOMERS.”

leave her bedroom to sleep in my room, so er, pursing his lips. “She can’t be naked.” Sebastián—Louboutin, in a pair of pressed that I could sleep in her larger bed,” he says. “No?” says Louboutin. “Well, how about white pants and a polo shirt, spends an “My friends were always quite shocked that the belly dancer has tassels on her breasts, hour meticulously considering two dozen she didn’t mind if we had a fuck in her bed.” instead of a bikini?” models about to go into production, mostly In the morning, his mother would have a pot “I guess so,” says the designer, before add- a series of voile-lace shoes he calls Madame of co#ee ready and everyone’s clothes laun- ing brightly, “We’ve never done that before!” Est Nude. He makes the same kinds of rec- dered. “I have only been to a laundry once Then Louboutin takes the catsuit Barbie— ommendations that he did for the Barbie in my life, and it was truly traumatizing,” he “It’s a cat burglar who likes to steal shoes!” out"ts—everything should be lower, sexier, con"des. “Very depressing.” says the Mattel designer—in his hands and jig- create more of a puff above the toes, and Mary-Kate Olsen is right that Louboutin’s gles it a bit. “And this, the dominatrix in a cat- overemphasize a woman’s arch (“the most life resembles a fairy tale, with only the most suit, could have a hood?” he asks hopefully. beautiful thing in the world”). When he’s minor tests of character—even his career as The room falls silent. done with each shoe, he exclaims “Super- a shoemaker began easily. After high school, class!” and claps his hands excitedly. he was hanging around the Folies Bergère, The Fairy Tale This scene could be replicated in any fash- befriending the girls by showing them his ith so many girlfriends to attend ion office, but when Louboutin descends fanciful drawings of shoes, but they eventu- to the world over, it seems that another !ight of stairs, a new world comes ally shooed him away. “I was so hurt,” he W Louboutin never stays still. Globe- into view: a Willy says. Wondering what else to do, he picked trotting provides him the opportunity to "nd Wonka wonderland @vf.com up a phone book and began dialing couture unexpected baubles for his designs—last year, of proportions here- LADIES IN RED: houses. His call to Balmain went unan- in Egypt, he fell in love with tiny Coptic tofore unknown to A SLIDE SHOW OF LOUBOUTIN’S swered, but Dior picked up, and the countess crosses at a monastery, incorporating them womankind, his very MOST FAMOUS in charge gave him a job as a model-making into his new line. “I didn’t think the priest own fairy tale. Down { CUSTOMERS. apprentice at the Charles Jourdan factory in would have liked it if I said I was planning here, in the factory, Nice. “It was like an angel looked down on to put it on women’s feet,” he says. “So, "rst, 50 men in matching baby-blue jackets work me,” he says. However, the men at the fac- when I asked for 80 crosses, I explained that busily at narrow desks, periodically rushing tory were cruel to him—“When things would I was very religious; then, when I asked for a down to the cellar, where more than a mil- get real ly bad, I would pretend to call the few hundred, I said, ‘Oh, I am doing curtains.’ ” lion dollars in dyed animal skins rests on countess on the phone, reminding them that But the place he is happiest is his factory color-coordinated shelves, waiting to be she and I were very close friends.” outside Milan, where I meet him several turned into shoes. First, Louboutin’s elves months later. In the Grimms’ fairy tale about cut the skin fabric into the shape of an Egyp- ne morning during his spell in Cali- the shoemaker and his elves, the cobbler lives tian collar (cute), then place the red sole on fornia last year, Louboutin takes upstairs from his workshop, in a rickety attic, the shoe with a rolling pin (double cute), and O a meeting at the Mattel factory in and Louboutin is most comfortable in a sim- a young boy hammers the heel into the shoe. Long Beach to "nish production on a set of ilar habitation. On Paris’s Rue Jean-Jacques (“He is an orphan, but happy!” whispers Louboutin Barbies. A series of headless Bar- Rousseau, where his business headquarters Christian.) The shoes are handed back and bies are lined up on a big conference table for and a made-to-measure atelier are located, forth, forth and back, as they make their way his approval, one in a peacoat and jeans, an- he lives with his partner, landscape designer through a short assembly line of the most

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adorable machines on earth, all the size of has at least 6,000 pairs, if not more. She select the shoes for her, in a very coded ritu- cigarette dispensers and covered with but- comes to Paris, and she literally buys ev- al,” he trills. “One day, I helped her to her car, tons in bright primary colors. Each pair is erything. Then she !ies back to New York, and when she opened the trunk it was stacked measured with a little metallic compass, then says, ‘I’m a little disappointed—there’s to the top with my shoeboxes. She’s buying laid on a contraption like a stack of piano nothing in the store,’ and walks out with the shoes, and she doesn’t even wear them.” keys, to steady the sole. They are put in an- 80 pairs.” He grins. “She is super.” The exhibition is at the Garage Center other machine, which blows steam onto the for Contemporary Art, a 1926 bus station leather, like a tiny hammam. “When you put Foot Fetish remodeled into an art gallery by oligarch the shoe inside here, everything wrinkled dis- hortly after leaving Milan, Louboutin Roman Abramovich’s girlfriend, Dasha appears and gets softer,” says Louboutin, heads to Moscow for an art exhibition Zhukova. Louboutin and his date, Melita “just like a woman doing her ablution.” S celebrating his fetish-inspired shoes pho- Toscan du Plantier, the widow of the French Everywhere there are shoes, shoes, shoes tographed by "lmmaker . Here, movie producer, take seats next to Lynch … It is almost too much to bear … the shoes are no longer frivolous, no longer and his wife, Emily Sto!e. “These pho- LOUBOUTIN’S “SUPER-TOP” CUSTOMER? “DANIELLE STEEL. SHE HAS AT LEAST 6,OOO PAIRS.”

“You know, I love it when women say the frilly embroidered Marie Antoinettes— tos are about a mood, a safe place, a secret to me, ‘Oh, I am your biggest customer—I this is shoe as weapon, as tool of domination place, cozy, protected,” says Lynch, motion- have 15 pairs of your shoes!’ ” says Loubou- over the male gender. All of the shoes in this less in his spotless white suit. “A place where tin, climbing the stairs back to his design exhibition are completely un-wearable out- you can ful"ll your desires.” studio. “I’m like, ‘Darling, you have no side the bedroom, though several have been The four of them stick close together at idea.’ For me, a big customer has to own at custom-ordered for exactly this purpose. Zhukova’s 200-person banquet dinner in least 500 pairs of shoes.” A red stiletto with a 10-inch heel looks the restaurant of the Central House of Writ- Five hundred pairs? like it could be worn only by Barbie. A pair ers. “This is really one of the few places in “I’d say about 3,000 women have 500 of black leather heels are glued next to each Moscow that has preserved well over time,” pairs,” he declares. “But those aren’t the big- other, like Siamese twins. “I would not call says Zhukova, twirling through the party gest customers. Those customers have”—a myself a fetishist, in that I am not speci"cally in a pink Rodarte dress. “It used to be a pregnant pause, and then a bit hesitantly— sexually interested in these shoes,” says place that was only accessible to writers, “about 6,000 pairs.” Louboutin as he scans the gallery. “But I politicians, and elites—but after Commu- Six thousand pairs! must admit I love to look at them very much. nism ended, it became open to everyone.” These are truly the queens of the world, a I find them so power- This isn’t a party for ple- clique that includes a Moroccan princess and, ful, so beautiful.” He beians, though, with many he says, Betty Lagardère, widow of French laughs. “O.K., maybe I wives and daughters of mogul Jean-Luc Lagardère, who is rumored am a bit of a fetishist.” oligarchs in attendance. to have a whole !oor of her home reserved He leans in close. “You They are yet another for Louboutins. Elite women who may own know, I have one client internation al set of girl- fewer of his shoes receive special service as in Paris, a psychoana- friends for Louboutin, well, like, he says, imperious Mme. Hariri lyst, who only comes who has two boutiques in of the billionaire Lebanese family. “With to shop when I am in Moscow, with new shops Madam, she will come to you "rst, but once the store, and I must planned for Jidda, , you know her, you must and this year. Glob- come to her,” says al economies may falter, Louboutin. “It is usu- but the needs of the tippy- ally the same with the top of the girl-chic set are very rich, especially too big to fail. from the Middle East. After the party, a doz- On the first floor of en black BMWs snake

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