Media Advisory
Designer Christian Louboutin to appear at Jeffrey Atlanta
WHAT: The Parisian designer who made the sole of the shoe as fashionable as the heel and vamp, Christian Louboutin will make a personal appearance at Jeffrey Atlanta in October. Shoe divas and fashionistas alike are encouraged to grab your friends and peruse his new spring line of heels.
WHEN: Friday, October 24, 2008 | 1 – 4 p.m.
WHERE: Jeffrey/Bob Ellis Phipps Plaza
3500 Peachtree Road Atlanta, GA 30326
404.237.9000
WHO: Meet designer Christian Louboutin, whose shoes have gone from being a fashion insider’s secret, when his first boutique opened in Paris in the early 90’s, to being obsessions of women from LA to Beijing. His stilettos, sling-backs, pumps and wedges – with the signature red sole — are the most coveted shoes in the world. Louboutin will be joined by Jeffrey founder Jeffrey Kalinsky.
“My life is a succession of fortuitous coincidences”
Christian Louboutin was born Capricorn in a working class neighborhood of Paris, known as the 12th Arrondisement. He was brought up by his mother and three sisters, and credits this feminine environment as the inspiration for much of his work.
As a child, he recalls discovering a drawing at the Museum of African art, which showed a woman’s high-heeled stiletto shoe, crossed out with a vivid red line. The image, which dated back to the 1950’s and was intended to safeguard the museum’s parquet floor, fascinated him. He had never before seen such a shoe (as this was the 1970’s, the era of the flat shoe and the clunky wooden heel) and he never forgot its fine delicacy.
A few years later, he discovered Paris’ night life: a demimonde of louche and crazy revelers – some famous, some utterly unknown – all united by their fondness for The Palace, a former theatre which had been transformed into a night-club of almost mythical status. He also frequented the music halls and theatres by day, and inspired by this exotic and sensual world, he decided to create shoes to sell to the dancers – despite his being a mere sixteen years old.
In 1980, Christian was offered an apprenticeship at the Folies Bergeres. In 1982, he moved to Charles Jourdan at Romans, which at the time created shoes for the house of Christian Dior. This afforded him subsequent freelance opportunities with various prestigious design houses including Maud Frison, Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent – before giving it all up in the late 1980’s to become a landscape gardener and a contributor to Vogue. But, he missed designing shoes.
A friend told him of a newly available boutique in the Vero-Dodat gallerie, a stylish Parisian arcade located very close to the Louvre museum. Two other friends came together to become his business associates and Christian Louboutin, the business, was formed in 1992. Four months after the boutique opened, an American journalist from W Magazine was sent to Paris with a mission to unearth new trends and places. She stumbled upon two women in an animated conversation about the beauty of the shoes in Christian’s boutique, one of whom turned out to be Princess Caroline of Monaco. The article was published, the business took off, and the rest is history.
The inimitable style of Christian’s shoes with their jewel-encrusted heels and sexy and light-hearted designs, appeals to an ultra-feminine audience; the red sole is eye-catching, while the clear lines and perfect finish perpetuate the tradition of a luxury shoe designed to evoke the charm of a bygone era. Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett are amongst the actresses found wearing Louboutins, while Madonna, Tina Turner, Gwen Stefani and the Olsen Twins are all huge fans.
Christian Louboutin has collaborated with other designers such as Azzedine Alaia and Diane von Furstenberg, as well as more contemporary names including Rodarte, Roland Mouret and Martin Grant. In 2002, he designed a shoe for Yves Saint Laurent’s final collection, and was granted the honor of being the first person ever to collaborate with Saint Laurent: the shoe was labeled “Christian Louboutin pour Yves Saint Laurent Haute Couture 1962-2002.”
Christian gains inspiration from traveling the continents and has a particular fascination with the Orient; while traveling, he enjoys hunting down colorful furniture pieces to adorn his various boutiques. Equally, his passion for the arts – from landscape architecture to cinema – fuel his imagination. He has collaborated with David Lynch, designing shoes painted by the film-maker for a retrospective at the Cartier Foundation, as well as creating individual one-off fetish pieces photographed by Lynch for the ‘Fetish’ exhibition. The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York paid tribute to Christian earlier this year with a retrospective of his work thus far.
Today, the Louboutin brand can be found in 46 countries in world-famous department stores like Saks, Neiman Marcus, Barney’s, Harvey Nichols, Joyce and Bergdorf Goodman. The red-soled shoes, and now the handbags, can also be found across Paris, New York, Moscow, London, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles. The shoes are still made in Italy and created in Christian’s design studio in Paris, but the abiding inspiration is still found in that 1950’s image and its incarnation is now the unforgettable red sole.