The instantly recognisable glossy red soles of the typical Christian Louboutin stiletto reveal a creativity driven by fantasy, play, fetish and sex. The first UK retrospective of the iconic French shoe designer follows Louboutin’s creative approach, focusing on the foot as an object of desire. Disrobing and nudity have become important themes, with Louboutin stressing his preference for shoes that ‘undress’, rather than ‘dress’.
Louboutin was born in 1964, the son of a cabinetmaker, and as a child recalls seeing a sign to a Museum of African and Oceanic Art showing a high heel shoe crossed out by a vivid red line. This is a lasting influence that seems to have inspired both the slender silhouette of the heel, and the erotic restraint of his work; particularly evident in his 2007 ‘Fetish’ exhibition at the La Gallerie Du Passage in Paris. The collaboration of photography with artist David Lynch showed footwear that was near impossible to walk in; there was even a ‘mono-shoe’ consisting of two shoes glued together. From the age of 14, Louboutin was a regular visitor to the Paris nightclubs and cabarets, and in 1980 was offered a job at the famous Parisian music hall, the Folies Bergere. This dramatic element of theatre and flirtation can be seen as a strong recurrence in his work; where the front of the shoe is plain like the dancer’s body, but the back is a bouffant of detail like the showgirl’s tail of feathers.
It must be incredibly hard to create an exhibition of shoes without reducing the content to the appearance of a shoe shop. This has been successfully avoided at the Design Museum, with the use of fragmented rooms exploring Louboutin’s design process. Perhaps the piece de la resistance of the whole exhibition is the 3D hologram of American burlesque dancer, Dita Von Teese, by multimedia projection specialists Musion (well known for their recent resurrection of Tupac for the Coachella Music Festival). Taking centre stage above a red display platform mimicking the red sole of a Louboutin, the hologram morphs a shimmering stiletto into the seductive silhouette of Von Teese.
