230 |Harper’s BAZAAR|September 2014ALI MADHAVIBeauty
“I WANTED TO ENTER BEAUTY with
legitimacy, and my legitimacy was in colours,”
Christian tells Bazaar at the super-secret
launch of the collection held in Paris back in
April. Over three days, journalists were
immersed into the world of Christian
Louboutin, visiting his curio-fi lled 2nd
arrondissement apartment for a cocktail party,
dining at his favourite restaurant, Les Jalles,
and experiencing a specially choreographed
performance at the Crazy Horse cabaret.
Apt, since his passion for über-femininity
began in the dressing room of the Folies
Bergère’s showgirls back in his teenage years.
“I thought it was pretty normal to start a totally
new adventure with the same enthusiasm as
I did when I fi rst started my company with the
shoes,” he smiles. As the Crazy Horse dancers
demonstrate, with their forever-legs and come-
hither gestures, it is made clear that much of
a woman’s beauty arsenal is derived from the
angle of an ankle or the twist of a wrist. “Shoes
change your entire body language and hands
have this as well, especially with dancing,”
explains Christian. “If you look at belly
dancing the hands are very important.” The
designer admits that he has always been
fascinated by a woman’s hands and ankles,
“I was brought up with four sisters who have
magnifi cent extremities,” he enthuses. The
designer technically has three sisters but refers
to the model Farida Khelfa as his fourth sibling.
In Louboutin world, the most celebrated
forms of beauty are not naturally occurring but
are a refl ection of a woman’s own efforts and
creativity. There’s little that’s natural about
elevating yourself on 120mm stilettos or
painting your nails a vivid red to hypnotise
onlookers, after all.
“I’m much more interested in people’s brains
and the creativity that they hold rather than
the nature of God, I’m afraid,” Christian
apologises. He compares this to preferring
a perfectly manicured garden to the wilds of
nature. “Naturality does not interest me. I like
the idea that you have power on things. And
everything to do with empowering women is
through owning your destiny. Beauty is driving
your destiny, you decide for yourself.”
It’s a theory that gels nicely with this region,“EVERYTHING TO DO
WITH E MPOWE R ING
WOMEN IS THROUGH
OWNING YOUR
D E S T I N Y ”
Christian Louboutin
Model Farida Khelfa
transformed into Nefertiti,
Christian Louboutin’s
ideal of beauty➤
where traditional dress
codes and cultural mores
dictate that a woman’s
beauty is semaphored via
exotic make-up, posture-
enhancing heels and the
fl ash of statement
accessories. “In the Middle
East, beauty is defi nitely very
important,” Christian says.
It chimes nicely, then, that the woman who
embodies the designer’s ultimate beauty is
a Middle Eastern icon, the ancient Egyptian
queen Nefertiti. “I think Nefertiti is an
incredible modern beauty,” he says of the
woman whose image endures thanks to the
bust of her likeness created in 1345 BC. “To
think it’s been here for 3,300 years; this beauty
has come back as almost a perfect beauty.”
Having transformed Farida into Nefertiti for
a photo session, Christian uses the embodiment
of this “not white, not black” vision to defi ne
his beauty ideal. “The eyes; they are eyes which
see far, I call them sleepy eyes, very deep eyes.
If you look at her face there is nothing natural.
The eyebrows are completely painted, the
mouth has been perfectly painted too.
It’s a very sophisticated face and I’ve always
been driven by sophistication. Normality has
never interested me. Even in her profi le there is
fragility,” he says, “sometimes you can see
someone who is perfectly groomed but you
feel that inside there is something broken,
something she doesn’t want to show, but you
can see it through the eyes.”