Christian Louboutin

Christian Louboutin was born in Paris in 1963. His obsession with shoes began when he was 13 years old when he visited a Parisian museum and saw a huge red high-heeled shoe worn by another visitor. He initially never wanted to work in fashion, so he dabbled for a while in landscape gardening and was interested in the stage instead. He nevertheless discovered that there was no money to be made there. Louboutin really adored shoes however, and said "nobody wears shoes like a dancer on stage." Since then, he decided to devote himself to fashion and designer footwear.

He first trained with Charles Jourdan and freelanced for Chanel and Yves St. Laurent with his shoe designs. He also met the great shoe designer Roger Vivier and helped him to organize an exhibition of Vivier's work.

Christian Louboutin paints the soles of all his shoes bright red, regardless of their outer colour. The actual heel of the shoes leaves a red rosette imprint behind. He calls them his "follow me" shoes. Louboutin designed this provocative prototype of the 'Egg' pump in 1988 in order to focus attention on what he feels is the most sensual, yet ignored, part of a woman's foot - the inside curve of the arch.

In 1991, Louboutin opened his own shop in the Passage Vero-Dodat in Paris, which soon caught the attention of Parisian socialites visiting the neighbouring antique dealers.

In 1996, Louboutin decided to design a range of shoes with transparent lucite heels, in which flower petals or other objects were seen to be floating. These were very popular and sold in very large numbers. For one customer, the French film star Arielle Dombasle, he enclosed 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 treasure."

His clientele includes Elizabeth Taylor, Princess Caroline of Monaco, Catherine Deneuve and Cher. Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg is also a big fan of his.

Louboutin loves to let his imagination run free. He has many plans for the future, including his own perfume, and will almost certainly make all his biggest dreams come true.

Find shoes by Christian Louboutin @ the following eshop: