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“Love life and love who you are. That's what you should try to do.” – Christian Louboutin
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History of Christian Louboutin Paris
Born on 7th January 1953 in Paris, France, Christian Louboutin is best known for his red sole shoes and occasional spiky shoe designs. He started his career as a freelance fashion designer, but his passion for shoes and sketching shoe designs starts in his teen years. His life has been full of art, culture and passion, which certainly transcends into his shoe designs. When you take into consideration that he had little formal design training other than drawing and decorative arts at the Académie d'Art Roederer, favoured sketching shoes over his academic studies at school, doesn’t believe in following a formal business model, and maintains that shoes serve very little purpose other than to make a woman feel happy and confident (one of the core elements of his brand), you can begin to understand what sets this brand and designer apart from others. Christian Louboutin began designing shoes in the 1980s but it wasn’t until 1993 that his work became famous. Originally, the French designer only produced women’s footwear but today, the brand also offers men’s footwear, make-up, fragrances, and handbags.
How the Iconic Louboutin Official Red Sole Was Created
The Louboutin official red sole was created in year 1993. The designer was struggling to bring his shoe designs to life and failed to understand why the final designs were not as impressive in real life as they were on his paper sketch designs. After spending many years during the 80s and early 90s designing and creating shoes, he was struggling to establish himself as a notable shoe designer. One day in 1993, when he was sat in his failing shoe store with his assistant, an incredibly mundane activity turned into something revolutionary for the future of shoes. As he began packing away the shoes on his shelves with the intention of closing his store, while his assistant painted her nails a fiery shade of red, he suddenly had an idea. He asked his assistant for her nail polish, picked up a pair of his shoes from his collection and began painting the soles with the red nail polish. The finished look impressed both Louboutin and his assistant and alas the famous red sole, commonly referred to as the “Sammy-Red-Bottoms” was born!
“I think that I make very useless work and I'm very proud of it. It’s very important to design things that you don’t need.” – Christian Louboutin
Facts about Louboutin World Shoes
- The first ever pair of shoes designed by Christian Louboutin were inspired by a photograph taken of Princess Diana outside the Taj Mahal in 1992. She was sat staring down at her feet but appeared sad. The designer thought that it would be a great idea to create a shoe that instantly made women feel happy when they stared down at their feet. Subsequently he created a pair of flat suede pumps with the word “LOVE” written in the signature shade of Louboutin red. On the left foot read the letters “LO” and “VE” on the right.
- The “So Kate” heels were inspired by none other than Kate Moss when he was fitting her for shoes for her wedding celebrations. He knew that she owned countless pairs of Pigalle heels so he designed her a custom made pair that were made specially to suit the model’s individual taste.
- Louboutin red soles are often nicknamed: “Sammy-Red-Bottoms.”
- The exact Pantone shade of Christian Louboutin Paris red soles is: Pantone 18-1663 TPX (Chinese Red).
- The brand’s best client at present is said to be American author Danielle Steel, who is said to own over 6, 000 pairs of Louboutins!
- The average heel height of the classic Louboutin world shoes is 120mm / 4.72 inches.
- The designer Christian Louboutin brought to our attention a must-know fact about determining the comfort of a pair of heels and ease of walking. The greater the distance between the tip of the sole and the heel, the easier the heels will be to walk in them. The shorter the distance between the tip of the sole and the heel, the more difficult for walking.