Christian Louboutin was in his 50s when a long-buried family secret was finally revealed: His biological father was not the Parisian carpenter who raised him but an Egyptian builder who’d worked on the family’s roof. All of a sudden, a lot of things made sense.
"I was surprised and not surprised," he said a few years after the revelation had sunk in. "Because I've had such a big love of Egypt. But then, of course, I was surprised because I thought my mother was a saint.”
Christian Louboutin: True Superhero
Christian took his sister’s revelation in his stride, however. His parents, who’d died years earlier, had spent their lifetime instilling in him a positive outlook. Christian would sit in his father’s workshop absorbing advice about woodworking and life: “If you are carving wood, you have to go in the direction of the grain. If you go against it, you will never do a beautiful carving, and on top of that you will end up having splinters.”
From an early age, Christian learned to swim with the tide. He immersed himself in the cinema, particularly enjoying Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra and books including Astérix et Cléopâtre. He first visited Egypt at the age of 17 and has since seamlessly incorporated Egypt into his nomadic lifestyle divided between homes in Portugal, Luxor, and Paris.
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Christian Louboutin was in his 50s when a long-buried family secret was finally revealed: His biological father was not the Parisian carpenter who raised him but an Egyptian builder who’d worked on the family’s roof. All of a sudden, a lot of things made sense.
"I was surprised and not surprised," he said a few years after the revelation had sunk in. "Because I've had such a big love of Egypt. But then, of course, I was surprised because I thought my mother was a saint.”
Christian Louboutin: True Superhero
Christian took his sister’s revelation in his stride, however. His parents, who’d died years earlier, had spent their lifetime instilling in him a positive outlook. Christian would sit in his father’s workshop absorbing advice about woodworking and life: “If you are carving wood, you have to go in the direction of the grain. If you go against it, you will never do a beautiful carving, and on top of that you will end up having splinters.”
From an early age, Christian learned to swim with the tide. He immersed himself in the cinema, particularly enjoying Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra and books including Astérix et Cléopâtre. He first visited Egypt at the age of 17 and has since seamlessly incorporated Egypt into his nomadic lifestyle divided between homes in Portugal, Luxor, and Paris.
Philanthropy has always been an important part of his life as well. He’s teamed up with Sabrina and Idris Elba on a project to prevent racial injustice, one of many charitable projects he has on the go: “I do things for; I never do things against. That’s my motto.”
A portrait of the artist as a young man: Christian in Paris
The young superhero
Christian began drawing shoes in his early teens. It wasn’t something his parents understood, but it wasn’t something they felt was worth arguing about either.
Born in Paris in 1963, he was the only son of Roger, a cabinet-maker, and Irene, a French homemaker, and they doted on him. He felt distant though, constantly wondering why his skin was so much darker than his three sisters: “I pictured myself as an alien in this super nice family. It drove my imagination.”
“I felt I wasn't French,” he said in 2012. “I decided they had probably adopted me. But instead of feeling it was terrible and that I was an outsider who had to go and find my real family, I invented my own history, full of characters from Egypt because I was very into the pharaohs."
Christian Louboutin’s punk-style studs
A spiky soul
Christian started skipping school and was often expelled before he dropped out entirely. He began hanging around Paris theaters and music halls in the 1970s and decided to show his shoe designs to the showgirls at the Folies Bergère cabaret music hall. Christian said he became their mascot/intern.
“One of my jobs was to bring food. All the time, they were asking me for veal carpaccio. And one day I said, ‘You all eat so much carpaccio. Why is that?’ They said, ‘You fool. We’re not eating it!’ Basically, they would put veal carpaccio in the bottom of the shoe, inside the shoe. So it was protecting, and it was a type of moisturizer.”
Around the same time, on a visit to a museum, he saw a sketch of a stiletto with a red line drawn through it. Stilettos, it seemed, were forbidden on the wooden floor - a powerful image for a young designer.
“The memory inspired his scarlet-soled Pigalle shoe, with “its towering spike heel giving it fetishistic overtones,” according to the BBC.
Best foot forward
Even before he became the King of Scarlet Soles, Christian Louboutin was attracting attention as one of the under-18s who dropped by legendary Le Palace nightclub in its heyday in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.
Grace Jones, Andy Wharhol and Mick Jagger were regulars. The key to bypassing the line-up, Christian recalled, was to: “Look good, and like you wanted to spend your entire night going crazy.”
Around the same time, Christian was traveling around India and Egypt, sketching elaborate high heels and angling for an internship with Roger Vivier, known as ‘the Fabergé of Footwear’.
By 1991, Christian’s mother had died and he was focusing his attention on opening his first boutique in Paris on the rue Jean Jacques Rousseau where it remains. “The reason I started this company was because of my mother,” he said. Princess Caroline was an early fan, and Christian really never looked back.
Notoriously private, Christian revealed in 2016 that he was the single father of two curly-haired twin girls. His family has kept him grounded along with his numerous charitable projects.
In 2006, he created the Red Soles for Hope campaign to raise money for AIDS research, then partnered with (RED) in 2009 to help fight AIDS in Africa - and he visited Africa several times to ensure the work was really underway.
He launched Peace of Shoe in 2010 which donated 100% of the proceeds to support microfinance in poor countries.
Christian Louboutin is known as much for his philanthropy as his gravity-defying pumps
In 2020, Christian launched his Walk a Mile in My Shoes charity project to aid groups that support racial justice. His partners include Idris Elba and his wife Sabrina. One hundred percent of the proceeds go directly to five non-profit organizations.
Christian’s pet project, founded by Harry Belafonte, is the Gathering for Justice mission which aims to end child incarceration.
Throughout the decades, Christian Louboutin’s belief in supporting charitable causes has not wavered, making him a true superhero.
“But I say that with all modesty because I've been fortunate enough to have very loving, supportive parents,” he said. “If you don't love yourself, you won't be able to give any love. I'm shy, but I feel confident. So I'm quite happy with the mix."
Walk a Mile in My Shoes’ sneakers with the iconic red sole
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