C is for Christian Louboutin

Like 99.9% of all women I am a serious shoe freak..  I have a closet full of shoes and it's a running joke with my grandkids who is going to inherit my shoe collection.  Unfortunately my budget is more Steve Madden than Christian Louboutin but a girl can dream can't she? 

 

So for those of you with inquiring minds, here are a few facts about the famous 47 year old French sole man who is behind the sexy, sky-high, signature red-soled shoes, which have been seen on the feet of superstars including Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johannson and Jennifer Lopez (who has a song about the shoes called "Louboutins"). Even Barbie dolls have their own custom mini-sized Louboutins.

 

Mr. Louboutin practices the trapeze and rides around Paris on a bright red Vespa scooter, can often be found at his atelier, where his famed shoes are designed and handmade.  Louboutins can sell from $495 and up, with crystal-encrusted pair costing $6,000.  While fashion overrides comfort (many of his shoes are seven-inch high heels), the designer says that his obsession with high-heeled shoes started on a visit to a Paris museum in 1976. While inside, Louboutin said he saw a sign that had a picture of a high-heeled shoe with an X over it, indicating women were not allowed to wear them in the museum. "It was crossed...like, forbidden, in red," he said. "It was a forbidden sketch."

 

From then on, the young designer started sketching shoes any chance he got, including during his studies. He was expelled from school at age 16.  He left home, studying design by day and spending his nights as a freelance shoe designer in Paris, making shoes for burlesque show girls before starting his own company in 1989.  The story behind the red sole is that he had a girl working with him, trying on the shoes. So when she was not trying on shoes, she sort of had nothing to do, so she was sort of waiting, and doing her nails, and he thought, why, this shoe has to have a black sole?  So he grabbed her nail polish, and painted the soles. It was then that his signature red sole was born and he claims that his red soles attract men, the way a bull is attracted to a red cape.

 

I will probably never own a pair of his famous shoes but the next time I see them on the feet of some famous actress I'll bet I am more informed, and now so are you.