EXCLUSIVE: Christian Louboutin Adds Kids, Pet Lines
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Christian Louboutin’s twin daughters, now 7, have had strong opinions about their clothing and footwear since they were age 3.
Now with the imminent launch of LoubiFamily, the children could finally wear some red-soled designs by their father to their recent baptism, with Paloma requesting her ballet flats in pink and Eloise a mary jane style so she could “run around in the church,” according to Louboutin.
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To be sure, the French footwear and accessories guru made playfulness a priority with his latest brand extension, a complete concept dedicated to children and pets, starting with dogs. “Cats will come after,” he teased.
Louboutin even created three cartoon superheroes, including a rambunctious lemur, which will feature in-store concepts, as prints on sneakers, and in a comic book.
While an important new venture for the company — complete with a Paris flagship, and dedicated pop-ups in New York, London and Shanghai for starters — it stems from a personal place: During pandemic lockdowns, Louboutin enlarged his household with two Portuguese Podengos, and could finally dedicate himself to a design project that had long been percolating.
“It’s a very natural extension of my life,” he said. “I started to have a family. I started to have animals.”
The designer also instilled his values as a parent in LoubiFamily, indulging children in their love of color and play, but not their wish to glue their eyes to screens. To wit: There will be no online content or marketing for kids; only coloring books, comics and educational distractions “so children continue to read, draw and sketch — things that children have done for hundreds of years, and should continue to do.”
From the outset, Louboutin was adamant that he wouldn’t create “mini me” versions of his adult footwear, even if many clients had been requesting replicas for years. In the end, he turned the idea on its head and created supersized versions of his kids’ sneaker designs for adults, maintaining the giant laces and outsized eyelets.
“It’s a family line because it’s a whole universe, it’s 360 degrees,” he said in an exclusive interview about the project. “Children want the shoes of their parents, but parents might also want the shoes of their children.”
For instance, the dapper designer insisted his favorite sneaker of the moment is the Toy Toy from the LoubiFamily range — adult versions of the kids’ Super Loubi, minus the neoprene superhero cape draped over the heel counter.
Other key styles for youngsters include the Melodie Chick, a ballerina with the same cutout details found on some of Louboutin’s pumps for adults, but also a snap button and elastic closure so they are easy to put on, plus a puzzle inside the shoes to teach tots left and right.
Finally, the Funnyto sneaker for kids, bearing a cartoon print and a lasered logo on the heel counter, need only be laced once and can be opened and closed with Velcro fasteners.
The first LoubiFamily collection comes in an array of colors and variations, with retail prices ranging from $245 to $395 for babies and $445 to $775 for kids, with some exceptional, crystal-paved sneakers topping out at $2,445.
Meanwhile, dogs can don leather collars and harnesses festooned with a variety of Louboutin’s signature studs — or sink their teeth into a rubber replica of his spiky Louis high-tops. Finally, a shoe dogs are allowed to chew on without repercussions.
Pet collars, harnesses, and leashes run from $290 to $620 and from $1,190 to $1,490 for special pieces with crystal elements. Toys are priced from $90 to $250, with pet carrier bags ranging from $1,790 to $2,390.
Louboutin was in Portugal during coronavirus lockdowns, which cemented his wish to include pets as integral members of a family.
He cited an educational component also because “when children have dogs, they have to take care of something smaller than them, offering them protection and love. It’s a great ecosystem to have animals when you have children.”
Louboutin clearly relished the project, which represented a “different” design exercise than the hyperfeminine, high-heeled designs that made him famous. Children’s footwear “can be really blown up and exaggerated. It’s all about colors. And it’s all about big details.”
He also stressed that it was a “very playful exercise” knowing how much children value play above all things. “So for someone who loves color like me, it’s a great thing.”
Such considerations extend to the decor for LoubiFamily pop-ups and the forthcoming flagship. “The codes have to be attractive to children,” Louboutin explained. “If you want to have kids feel good in your store, you want to have elements where they can play.”
So sofas will be able to withstand rambunctious types prone to jumping on furniture, while their four-legged friends will find a comfortable place to lie down, sit, or shake a paw.
The designer hinted that decor elements will take cues from the comic book, with the striped tail of the lemur character, named Pilou, featuring in the handwritten branding, and as table legs on fixtures, for example.
Pilou is described as the best friend of Super Loubi, a superhero (or shoe-per-hero) version of the founding designer, along with Wonder Loubi, a female superhero described as powerful and mysterious.
“It cannot be a product story; it has to be a story with characters,” Louboutin explained. “Children love characters, they devour their books.”
His ambition is to foster education in the retail setting, “to have children read and be interested in substantial things,” he said “Nothing on screens: no electronics, no tablets; it’s completely forbidden.”
The LoubiFamily retail concept will reach a zenith with the Paris flagship, slated to open in early 2023 near the designer’s historic location on Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
For starters, LoubiFamily will pre-launch at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York on Oct. 25 and from Nov. 1 arrive at Harrods in London, and the Kerry Center in Shanghai, plus all Christian Louboutin e-commerce platforms worldwide.
There will be select wholesale distribution, too, including saks.com, Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, California, nordstrom.com and Nordstrom in Aventura, Florida, plus Mytheresa.com
How fast the LoubiFamily concept will grow has yet to be mapped out. Meanwhile, Louboutin is eager to slow his daughters’ embrace of fashion, marveling at their willfulness.
“Paloma is about colors; the other more about the style,” said the designer, who introduced lipstick and nail polish in 2012, ultimately adding makeup and fragrances, too. “They’re already starting to ask when they will be able to wear makeup.”
