‘You Can Swim in Louboutins,’ David LaChapelle Says
“I like to do things with shoes where you’re not expecting to see shoes,” Christian Louboutin said wryly about his Paris Fashion Week presentation, which will feature France’s national artistic swimming team donning his glossy new Miss Z pumps — and putting them through some serious underwater paces.
Louboutin mind-melded with David LaChapelle, artistic director for the project, over their shared love of swimming, Esther Williams, Busby Berkeley movies and feminine glamour.
“There’s something quite mystical in his work when he involves water,” Louboutin enthused about the photographer and music-video director, who currently lives in Hawaii.
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Meanwhile, LaChapelle marveled at the durability and beauty of the designer’s heels.
“They’re holding up through rehearsals,” he said. “We discovered that you can swim in Louboutins — and they still look great.”
Choreographer Blanca Li is the third co-conspirator behind Friday’s spectacle at the Piscine Molitor, which is to feature 15 artistic swimmers, 14 dancers, a live musical performance, and highlights of Louboutin’s spring 2025 collection.
Unveiling the project in an exclusive interview, Louboutin said he caught Olympic fever like many Parisians, and had even visited the purpose-built aquatic center in Paris, across from the Stade de France, months before the 2024 Paris Games got under way.
“I always loved synchronized swimming. And my two daughters, the first thing they’ve been doing before walking was swimming,” said Louboutin, who usually starts most days with some laps in the Cheval Blanc pool.
The designer disclosed his wish to incorporate the artistic sport into his Paris Fashion Week event to Daphne Guinness, who immediately suggested her friend LaChapelle, given his flair for stylized, impeccable imagery — often situated around water.
Indeed, for a poolside Maybach event during Art Basel Miami back in 2009, LaChapelle conscripted synchronized swimmers to pretend they were party guests, and then jump into the water in formation.
For the “Paris is Louboutining” event, “I just wanted to create something that was fun, and very theatrical in a Hollywood kind of vibe,” LaChapelle enthused over Teams from his room at the Ritz in Paris.
The two settled on a retro-tinged aesthetic involving Fifi Chachnil swimsuits, Vidal Sassoon-esque hairstyles and Biba-inspired makeup.
Louboutin’s brief to Chachnil was the ‘40s, crossed with modern-day Miley Cyrus.
A live performance by singer LP will bring a high-energy, punk edge to a spectacle LaChapelle described as “over the top.”
For her part, Li grew up loving Esther Williams movies and was also a gymnast on Spain’s national team, making her uniquely qualified for the pool project.
“I always wanted to do a choreography in the water,” she said in an interview.
The choreographer tasked France’s artistic swimmers with executing many technically difficult moves, but with flair. “I wanted to make it very dance, very glamorous, and create a softer atmosphere so that it’s not pure [athleticism],” she said.
Li had to adjust to giving verbal instructions via a microphone to her underwater troupe.
Meanwhile, the swimmers had to adapt to performing in leather pumps, which did not allow them to move as quickly as in bare feet. Still, Li described a transformation she’s seen often with dancers when they don Louboutins.
“When we’re rehearsing and they put the shoes on, they change the attitude,” she said. “And the swimmers, they were very excited when we did choreography without the heels.”
Louboutin has worked frequently with dancers, which served him well in shodding the synchronized swimmers, who are tantamount to underwater dance performers.
“The shoes have to fit in a very, very different way,” he said. “You have to make sure when they point their feet, they don’t come off.”
The designer also had to consider how water might change the color and patina of the shoes, so he opted for patent leather in bright colors. “They look like incredible shells under water,” he said.
Louboutin confessed he was gobsmacked by how young the French athletes were, and by their physical prowess.
“For them, it was a piece of cake, because what is asked visually is not complicated for them at all,” he said. “Whatever you ask them, they can do it in a minute, in a second.”
Still, they relished the opportunity to be immersed in a new creative expression. As Louboutin put it, “a bombshell of fashion arrived in the middle of their world.”
For his part, LaChapelle said the biggest challenge is making sure the swimmers, dancers, set, projections, musing and timing are all, ahem, synchronized.
“I love the formations the athletes make,” he said. “We all love Olympic athletes, who represent the best of humanity. We want to create a beautiful, escapist moment.”
