It’s no secret that Christian Louboutin loves a performance. From his work at the Crazy Horse, to his most recent Paris Fashion Week spectaculars, the famed shoe designer clearly gets his kicks putting on a show.
For his spring ‘24 collection, the designer dove even further into the world of dance with another “Loubi Show” performance. This time, Louboutin tapped choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui to work with a troupe of some 16 dancers to perform onstage at the Sorbonne’s Grand Amphitheater.
“I often focus on dance, but this time it was really about the movement and the different ways of dancing,” Louboutin said ahead of showtime, as he milled about the collection presentation, escorting guests like Karry Wang, Younghoon and a bevy of his loyal private clients that were invited to the show.
For spring ‘24, the designer took a few avenues in thinking about performance pieces and showstoppers. Black and white raffia and feathers adorned a series of pumps and sandals, the most dramatic of which stretched a few feet upwards in a single plume. Another vignette had crystals on major display in a dramatic mid-calf boot that was decorated on every inch of the footwear (aside from the red soles, of course), plus suede pumps and booties outfitted with intricate crystal laces and wraps. Yet another series showed a boot, pumps and matching bag done in a multi-colored metallic interwoven leather.
Louboutin’s gravitation to sculpture was also apparent, in a few pastel pumps that featured carved bronze heels resembling leaves, or flowers just about to bloom upwards onto the shoe.
“I always love objet,” said Louboutin, who noted that he had spent “quite a long time” working to develop the leaves. “The inspiration was really a [Claude] Lalanne sort of feeling on the heels. It’s about something organic grabbing you, caressing you on the leg.”
The high-heel maestro also had a significant collection of lower heels in his version of the classic Mary Jane, done this time in black patent, metallics and all-over strass. Here, Louboutin was thinking of actual dance footwear.
“You have many ways and many cultures of dancing. Mary Janes, for me, have this tap dancing feeling, this Spanish, sort of Flamenco-like feeling,” he said. “So it’s [about] the double cross Mary Jane. And also it was Jane Birkin, those legs, that silhouette. Dancing in short heels — a little tap moment. So that was really all around dance.”
The sounds of dance and movement also helped to shape the performance later on. Onstage, dancers in crystal boots and brogues performed an elaborate sequence while the bionic pop artist Viktoria Modesta danced in a prosthetic leg designed by Louboutin. Shaped like one of the designer’s signature spikes, the leg made a distinctive noise on the stage.
To take the idea of shape and sound even further, the brand tapped digital artist Tobias Gremmler to create a series of graphics on moving LED screens that moved around onstage with the performers. On screen, bodies moved around in and were enveloped by various materials of the Louboutin world, from latex and crystals to studs and feathers. Extremities morphed into other objects, from spikes to feathers, echoing the image of Modesta’s spiked prosthetic, reminding viewers that for Louboutin, the foot really is objet.
