Christian Louboutin

Christian Louboutin (born 7 January 1963) is a French fashion designer.

His stiletto footwear incorporates shiny, red-lacquered soles that have become his signature.

Initially a freelance designer for fashion houses, he started his shoe salon in Paris, with his shoes finding favor with celebrity clientele.

He has partnered with other organizations for projects including limited edition pieces, gallery exhibits, and a custom bar.

His company has since branched out into men's luxury footwear, handbags, fragrances, and makeup.

Louboutin was born and raised in Paris.

He was the only son of Roger, a cabinet-maker, and Irene, a homemaker from Brittany.

He had three sisters.

Louboutin says his fascination with shoes began in 1976 when he visited the Musée national des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie on the avenue Daumesnil.

It was there that he saw a sign from Africa forbidding women wearing sharp stilettos from entering a building for fear of damage to the extensive wood flooring.

This image stayed in his mind, and he later used this idea in his designs.

"I wanted to defy that", Louboutin said.

"I wanted to create something that broke rules and made women feel confident and empowered."

Fascinated by world cultures, he ran away in his teens to Egypt and also spent a year in India.

Going through a punk phase, he was in a few films, including the 1979 cult classic Race d'ep and The Homosexual Century, which attracted an English-language audience.

His first job was at the Folies Bergères, the cabaret where he assisted the entertainers backstage.

He was also a fixture on the city's party scene alongside Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol.

His little formal training included drawing and the decorative arts at the Académie d'Art Roederer.

In the late 1980s, he turned away from fashion to become a landscape gardener and to contribute to Vogue but missed working with shoes and set up his company in 1991.

Louboutin returned to Paris in 1981, where he assembled a portfolio of drawings of elaborate high heels.

He brought it to the top couture houses.

The effort resulted in employment with Charles Jourdan.

Subsequently, Louboutin met Roger Vivier, who claims to have invented the stiletto, or spiked-heel shoe.

Louboutin became an apprentice in Vivier's atelier.

Going on to serve as a freelance designer, Louboutin designed women's shoes for Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Maud Frizon.

With funds from two backers, he opened a Paris shoe salon in 1991 with Princess Caroline of Monaco as his first customer.

She complimented the store one day when a fashion journalist was present, and the journalist's subsequent publication of Princess' comments helped greatly to increase Louboutin's renown.

Clients such as Diane von Fürstenberg and Catherine Deneuve followed.

Later, those interested in his stiletto heels have included Christina Aguilera, Joan Collins, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna, Tina Turner, Marion Cotillard, Nicki Minaj, Gwyneth Paltrow and Blake Lively.

Sarah Jessica Parker wore a pair of shoes by Louboutin for her wedding.

Britney Spears wears a pair of high-heeled Louboutins in her music video "If U Seek Amy" that were not available for sale until a month after the video was released.

Louboutin said in a 2012 interview that he was "much darker-skinned than everyone else in my family. You know, I felt like I wasn't French. My family was very French and so 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."

He discovered that he had Egyptian heritage from his biological father, who had been in a secret relationship with his mother Irene, as revealed by one of his sisters in 2014.

Louboutin was expelled from school three times and then he decided to run away from home at the age of 12, at which point his mother allowed him to move out to live at a friend's house.

He faced much opposition when he decided to drop out from school.

However, he claims that what helped him make up his mind was an interview on TV with Sophia Loren, in which she introduced her sister.

She stated that she had to leave school when she was only 12, but got her degree when she was 50.

He later remarked, "Everybody applauded! And I thought, Well, at least if I regret it I'm going to be like the sister of Sophia Loren!"

As a preteen he was one of the "Bande Du Palace", a group of hard-partying teens and preteens that included Eva Ionesco, who was a fixture of the Parisian nightclub Le Palace.

Louboutin's passion for designing shoes started at a young age, overshadowing his interest in academics and leading him towards a successful career in fashion.