Here’s What Happened at ‘The Loubi Show’ During Paris Fashion Week

Christian Louboutin has taken us on a tour of Paris during the last few years — first to the Palais de la Porte Dorée in 2020, where he opened his unique retrospective just before the pandemic took hold. Then in September 2021, the designer took over  L’Atelier des Lumières in Paris, a museum dedicated to digital art exhibitions for an immersive presentation. 

This time around, as the fashion crowd returned to Paris in full force for the first time in two years, Louboutin stage a dance show-turned-fashion week presentation at at L’Espace Niemeyer, conceived in the 1970s by his favorite architect Oscar Niemeyer.

For Louboutin, dance has always been a major source of inspiration. After all, the French designer started out as an intern at Les Folies Bergères in the City of Light. At a young age, he wanted to design shoes for the dancers. “They were like night birds to me,” he recalled.

Flash forward through the decades, and Louboutin brought together nine eclectic dancers to perform under the Coupole, a dome at L’Espace Niemeyer decorated with thousands of aluminum slats and bathed in red light. 

With curtain motions and flashing lights providing plenty of drama, the dancers revealed the Hot Chick Sling, a new slingback featuring a scalloped strap on a stiletto heel. (The style is an updated take on the best-selling Hot Chick Pump.)

Other highlights from the collection included a Clue-inspired ‘Loubi Mystery’ capsule, which the designer designed in collaboration with his close friend, Parisian artist Yaz Bukey.

Another capsule, the “Greekba”, is a fun take on the designer’s obsession with travel and his adventures with Miss Tependris, a fictional character imagined by Konstantin Kakanias, a Greek artist. 

While the dancers performed at the event throughout the afternoon (talk about stamina), another star arrived for the evening cocktail.

The designer held court at a cocktail attended by Olivia Palermo, Coca Rocha, Anok Yai, Jessica Wang, Chriselle Lim and more big names.

For more highlights from Christian Louboutin fall ’22, click through the gallery.