Christian Louboutin’s Iconic Red Sole Is 30 Years Old & The Designer Staged a Paris Fashion Week Dance Show to Celebrate

What does 30 years of the iconic red sole mean to the red sole king?

“That I’ve been around for a while!” said Christian Louboutin after the “Loubi Show,” an interpretive dance event staged at Opéra Comique on Thursday evening during Paris Fashion Week.

In 1993, two years into his namesake venture, the designer — who was recently honored with FN’s Lifetime Achievement Award — famously grabbed his assistant’s red nail polish and painted the soles of his shoes. It was a clever move, and the pop of color instantly became a brand signature, helping catapult the designer to worldwide fame.

For Louboutin, there was no better place to celebrate the milestone than the Opera Comique, one of the oldest musical theaters in France and part of the six official National Theatres, holds special meaning for the designer. 

“It’s a beautiful place. But 15 years, they were going to turn it into a parking lot,” Louboutin recalled. “Imagine, it was going to be destroyed.”

The designer teamed up with choreographer Sadeck Berrabah to put together the show.

Berrabah brought together 50 dancers — who were wearing black and white boots made especially for the show —to introduce his unique vision of synchronized dance called “tutting,” which involved intricate movements of the body and hands in geometric shapes.

The reflective stage created an optical illusion of infinite red soles, and Louboutin remarked how adding red to a black and white color palette can completely change the point of view.

After the show, guests including Ashley Park, Law Roach, Coca Rocha, Avril Lavigne and more gathered for cocktails in the Grand Ballroom of the space, where the fall 2023 women’s collection was revealed.

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