Born on the 7th of January 1964, Christian Louboutin is a French footwear designer. He launched his line of high-end women’s shoes in France in 1991. Since 1992, his designs have incorporated the shiny, red-lacquered soles that have become his signature. Louboutin filed an application for U.S. trademark protection of this red sole design on the 27th of March 2007.
I love these shoes because they are classy,simple style with a splash of diamante detail. Paying attention to other aspects of shoes, like the heel, is a great new way of looking at shoe designing.
From the age of 12, Louboutin would regularly sneak out of school to visit the market at Vila do Conde, where all the gipsies loved his shoes. Although Louboutin faced much opposition following his decision to leave school so early, he believes that his decision was made final after watching an interview on TV with Sophia Loren. In this interview she introduced her sister saying that she had to leave school when she was only 12 but got her degree when she turned 50. “Everybody applauded! And I thought, “Well, atleast if I regret it I’m going to be like the sister of Sophia Loren!”
http://stylecheckup.com/the-shoe-genius-christian-louboutin/
From the age of 12, Louboutin would regularly sneak out of school to visit the market at Vila do Conde, where all the gipsies loved his shoes. Although Louboutin faced much opposition following his decision to leave school so early, he believes that his decision was made final after watching an interview on TV with Sophia Loren. In this interview she introduced her sister saying that she had to leave school when she was only 12 but got her degree when she turned 50. “Everybody applauded! And I thought, “Well, atleast if I regret it I’m going to be like the sister of Sophia Loren!”
He never wanted to work in fashion, he focused for a while on landscape and gardening, but was interested in the stage instead. He adored shoes and says, ”nobody wears shoes like a dancer on stage”. So he decided to devote himself to fashionable footwear. He admits to have spent a lot of time as a teenager, drawing shoes with compressed buckles and with soles, in his school notebooks. These shoes would become the base of Louboutin’s sales as a designer.
I really like this image, showing that his designs are not restricted to comfort, his work is his art, its sexy and different.
http://www.passport2fabulous.com/2010/08/christian-louboutin/
He then began attending parties and dance halls in Paris, offering his shoes to women, unfortunately most of these ladies rejected his shoes claiming to have no money. He first trained with Charles Jourdan and freelanced with Chanel and Yves St. Laurent with his shoe designs. He also met the great shoe designer Roger Vivier and helped him organize an exhibition of Vivier’s work.
Louboutin helped bring stilettos back into fashion in the 1990s to 2000s, designing dozens of styles with heel heights of 120mm and higher. “Making a woman look sexy, beautiful, to make her legs look as long as I can”, this was the designers professed goal. Louboutin is better known for his dressier evening wear designs incorporating jeweled straps, bows, feathers, patent leather and other small decorative touches, even though he does offer some lower-heeled styles.
In his U.S. trademark application, Louboutin explains the inception of the signature red soles:
"In 1992 I incorporated the red sole into the design of my shoes. This happened by accident as I felt that the shoes lacked energy so I applied red nail polish to the sole of a shoe. This was such a success that it became a permanent fixture."
Louboutin paints the soles of his shoes bright red regardless of their colour, the actual heel of the shoe leaves a red rosette imprint behind. He calls them his “follow me” shoes. Because of their trademark red leather sole, it makes these shoes instantly recognizable.
Louboutin’s lethal-looking stilettos were inspired by and incident that occurred in his early 20s. He had visited a museum and noticed that there was a sign, forbidding women wearing sharp stilettos from entering, because they were afraid of the damage it would cause to the extensive wood flooring. This image stayed in his mind, and he later used this idea in his designs. "I wanted to defy that," Louboutin has said. "I wanted to create something that broke rules and made women feel confident and empowered." ouboutin has topped The Luxury Institute's annual Luxury Brand Status Index (LBSI) for three years; the brand's offerings were declared the Most Prestigious Women's Shoes in 2007, 2008, and 2009.
There are Christian Louboutin stores located in Paris, New York, California, Las Vegas, Miami, Dallas, London, Ireland, Moscow, Hong Kong, Japan, Indonesia, Lebanon, Melbourne, Sydney, Dubai, Sao Paulo and many more.
Branded Louboutin shoes are sold in-store and online through various luxury goods retailers such as Harrods, Browns, Matches, Barneys, Sak Fifth Avenue, etc. The brand is under constant attack from fake knock off versions, often made in China. Louboutin's main website contains a prominent note stating that any other domain name containing the word "Louboutin" is very likely to be selling counterfeit goods. In the last few years, the company has served hundreds of DMCA notices on Google to remove many sites selling fake goods from their search results.[10] Even after this action, thousands of sites remain online. The company has recently set up a separate site mainly focuse don protecting the brand and stating hundreds of websites that sell fake goods, it also includes summaries of legal actions taken, including raids on factories, with photographs and videos of the mass destruction of counterfeit goods.
These shoes have a cool rockstar edge to them with the silver spikes but contrast of "girly" glitter, the metallic colour makes it very bold and eye-catching
http://www.shopstyleceleb.com/2011/02/jennifer-lopez-at-the-2011-grammy-awards-february-13-2011/
Christain Louboutin loves to let his imagination run wild. He once designed a range of shoes with transparent Lucite heels, in which flower petals or other objects are seen floating. For a special customer, a French film star, Arielle Dombasle, sealed love letters from her philosopher husband within the plastic heels, as well as a lock of his hair, and a quill. She says, “His shoes are unique, each one is like a jewel.”
Louboutin has many plans for the future, including a perfume line. Famous celebrities that wear his shoes include Elizabeth Taylor, Princess Caroline of Monaco, Catherine Deneuve, Angelina Jolie, Cher and many, many more.
The relevance of his work to our practice that I can think of would be the embellishments of the shoes, the fact of keeping in mind how your design would fit and compliment the body. Both shoes and jewellery makes you feel good when you wear it, it completes an outfit. In his design concepts, he tries to break barriers, thinking of new ways and styles of shoes, the same way that we try to discover newer, more innovative and daring ways and designs for jewellery, thinking beyond of what we know, and are used to. This I what I love about his work, he takes into concideration of what the consumer would love and feel great in, and combines that with current trends, at the same time being daringly different. His shoes range from being bright, flamboyant and edgy to classy and subtle.
This style is very classy and elegant, what he did with the ribbon adds volume and gives it a feminine feel. I really love the neautral colour with the bold red peeping here and there, its a beautiful contrast. Once again it attracts attention to the back of the shoes, and the heel, its so different.
http://www.shoes2k.com/tag/christian-louboutin
He has a range of styles from classic and elegant, to daringly bold and edgy, his shoes are truly art.
http://www.passport2fabulous.com/2010/08/christian-louboutin/
This is quite a funky champagne flute that was inspired by Christian Louboutin designs, its exaggerated a bit how the shoe has been elongated representing the elegance in his designs.
Bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Louboutin
http://www.fashionmodeldirectory.com/designers/christian-louboutin/
http://www.christianlouboutin.com
http://www.christianlouboutin.com
