Philippine Tatler sits down with fashion’s undisputed master shoemaker who shares the fascinating evolution of his amazing career

“The idea of a high heel now is completely different,” declares luxury French shoe designer Christian Louboutin, he of the signature red sole, who has designed his share of stratospheric heels. “Before, the high heel was eight centimetres and a half. The first season [I started designing], I did a shoe which was eight-and-a-half centimetres—around three inches and a half—and people were saying, it’s nice but it’s much too high.”

He’s gone higher. But, he explains, “what matters is not actually the height of the heel but the arch. If you’re on a five-inch arch, it’s probably more complicated for some people than being on a seven-inch arch with a three-inch platform.”

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Above The maestro at work

He’s even done nine inches—with a platform. He concedes that without the platform, a shoe that high would be difficult to walk in. He is amused by tales of women, in a twist on the Cinderella tale, anaesthetising their feet to be able to walk, if not a mile, then certainly a few metres,in vertiginous heels. There is a well-known local actress—an avowed Louboutin fan—said to apply Emla (a topical anaesthetic) to her feet just so she can dance all night in stilettos. There are also stories of women who go to the extent of having Botox injections on their feet in order to walk in high heels; though this does not apply specifically to his own red-soled creations. Louboutin cautions against this, saying it could even lead to serious injury, because you can do greater damage to your feet if you don’t feel anything!

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Above One of Louboutin's sketches shows his sense of whimsy

He has a point. To wear his shoes is to step into a world of unabashed yet powerful femininity, no doubt influenced by his childhood growing up with his mother and sisters. His towering heels, platformed or not, are like a talisman of sorts, exuding both strength and sensuality. A woman should be able to walk in his shoes and feel comfortable and capable, but he notes that “a lot of people are buying shoes, not necessarily to walk in.”

Take So Kate, for instance, one of his most iconic designs, with a heel measuring five inches—without a platform. “Five inches is easy for people who like and are used to high heels. More than five is becoming a bit of a complicated issue, and I’m talking of the arch. Five is the maximum. I did five-and-a-half and we sold them all, but it was really for people who are—well, dancers, because for them it’s easy, the arch is so high already. It’s really not for walking. It’s a very sexy attitude. Think of it as lingerie.”

Sex is indeed packed into every inch of a Christian Louboutin shoe. So is function, and so is a unique sense of grace fused with tenacity—which is not at all surprising when one discovers that the Paris-born designer has great affection for dancers. It was an early dream of his to draw shoes for the women who starred in musicals. Following an internship with the famed Parisian cabaret, Les Folies Bergère, he began his career by designing shoes for showgirls.

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Above A young Christian Louboutin in primary school

“I always wanted to make shoes, basically. I started pretty early, designing perhaps when I was 11 or 12, not thinking it was it was a serious job.” The youthful sketches soon gave way to an undeniable vocation, and at 18, after his internship, he realised that Paris wasn’t quite Broadway, and he wasn’t going to get very far without real training.

“Still, it was a very important experience,” he says, “because you learn a lot from showgirls. Definitely a lot. Because they need to dance in the shoes, and also the shoe is an accessory to their body and to the volume that they have to represent on stage.”

A significant lesson he learnt from his stint at the cabaret was that the showgirls had to perform in his shoes, so they had to be able to forget about the shoes. “It’s present but not present. And I kept those elements in the DNA of my brand.”

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Above Posing with his designs

His first big break was in 1982, when he landed an interview with the Director of Christian Dior at the time, Helène de Mortemart, whom he cold-called while flipping through the yellow pages, calling couture houses in alphabetical order.

“There was Balmain, but nobody answered, and then there was Dior.” Charles Jourdain was manufacturing the shoes for Dior at the time, and he was hired upon de Mortemart’s recommendation. From there he began freelancing for several other prestigious brands until he opened his own luxury house.

At the end of 1991, he chose the historic Passage Vero-Dodat in the Palais-Royal district as the location of his first boutique, which remains the flagship store in his growing retail empire of 137 boutiques worldwide. He credits the timelessly chic and sophisticated Princess Caroline of Monaco for “discovering” him, before the fashion editors extolled the sexy heights of his stilettos, and noticed the distinct red sole.

The Monegasque princess he regards as one of his “fairies” along the way to the international success he enjoys now and quite richly deserves. The first important fairy in his life is his “fantastic mother.” Dior’s Helene de Mortemart is another one, “because she didn’t know me, but sent me to Charles Jourdain. That really settled my technical background.” Fairies can be male, too, and Roger Vivier is one of them, Louboutin says, “who was very sweet to me. A male fairy but still a fairy.”

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Above The designer personally checks the fit of a shoe on a model

He had just opened his boutique towards the tail end of 1991. He recalls, “A month after, a journalist came; she was going to do a reportage about new shops in Paris. So she was waiting in the store—my small office was at the back of the store. Two or three minutes after she arrived, in came Caroline of Monaco with a friend, and she started to show the shop to her friend. She already had come before, but I wasn’t there that time, on her way to her decorator nearby. So I took the journalist to my office at the back, and she didn’t tell me but she was very impressed to see someone so high profile in such a new store. Her article came out in January or February and the buyers came because of that article.”

Louboutin and Princess Caroline of Monaco have since become very good friends, and they often have a good laugh reminiscing about that fateful day. “She says she’s a good salesman anyway! Because she was in the store and she basically sold the entire store to her friend!”

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Above Whimsical yet powerful, Louboutin’s designs pay homage to women’s strength and beauty

Louboutin may have had his fairies, and no small measure of luck, but he is also extraordinarily talented, with an innate sense of what women want on their feet, whether walking on the street or lounging in bed. As for his own feet, he wears his own shoes from his menswear line, Nike and APL for running, and for everything and everywhere else—such as in the Philippines on a recent visit—he confesses a love for Havaianas.

“My biggest collection is really Havaianas. And you know what, they’re beautiful pairs of shoes, it’s a beautiful design.” The inspiration is classic, too, he says. “You can see the earliest representation of a thong in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, it’s one of the sandals from the tomb of Tutankhamun. The first thongs were made with a sole of rotin [rattan] and then a woven bridle. You see, the original design of all these shoes are coming from the same place—ancient Egypt.”

This exclusive story is first published in the March 2018 fashion issue of Philippine Tatler, available in all leading newsstands and bookstores, and downloadable via Magzter, Zinio, and Pressreader.

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