Christian Louboutin first remembers John Galliano 40 years ago, making his first, tentative steps in Paris, the city of dreams, the city of fashion. “He was an excited English fashion student, but also very, very excited by Paris,” Louboutin recalls, “He was always saying, ‘I love Paris, and Paris loves me!’ And Paris really loved him.”
John Galliano had rather despaired of his London life. The ’80s had been a glorious, carefree, wild decade, but those heady days were coming to an end. AIDS was rearing its terrible head, and heroin cast a pall. Fashion in London was tough. His backers withdrew their support. But Galliano knew that in Paris his fantasies would somehow become realities. There, he slept on friends’ sofas and ate beans on toast as he chased this elusive dream. Louboutin recalls that “he was a very joyful, happy person.” Galliano was swept up in the Paris world. And it treated him royally, for a time.
But in spite of this love and their friendship, Louboutin and Galliano had never collaborated in a serious way before on a collection. Of course they had collaborated on individual models for specific clients (for instance, Louboutin did the shoes for Kate Moss’s 2011 wedding—the dress, a memorably 1930s fairy tale by John Galliano for Margiela).
That is, until “one day I had lunch with John and Alexis [Roche, his partner], and he said, out of the blue, ‘Would you consider doing something with me?’ And immediately I said ‘Yes of course!’ John was very, very happy. And suddenly he was a shower of ideas. This was a milestone in his story because he was so, so, so, into it. He was drowned by it, and so excited and so precise, and so full of his creative energy.” Galliano “always loved shoes but he’s never made them,” as Louboutin explains, so he has assembled key figures who have brought their skills to the medium, “and I’m very happy and proud to be one of them,” adds Louboutin. “You know, it’s funny when you work. We worked almost a year ahead, and it was very complicated—because his clothes are incredibly complicated to do because of the faux cul [the false bottom] and so on. Everything was on a level of couture that is almost never reached.”
Ultimately, the show was a triumph; a swansong for John Galliano’s extraordinary decade at Maison Margiela. “It was of a perfection,” says Louboutin, “that evening, with the drizzle under the bridge.” The show was held under the Pont Alexandre III bridge in Paris, where Galliano had conjured a sort of thread bare 1930s boite. It was a Brassai moment, with Pat McGrath’s extraordinary second skin, shining face masks.
“Even if I was expecting something which was going to be great, I was not necessarily ready to have such a vision of such an impactful show. It’s one thing that you can expect from very, very few designers, and you can expect this from him,” says Louboutin. “The level of emotion involved in the show, not only in the clothes, but in the show itself: it was a really magical moment. You know, it's poetry and magic. Even just talking about it makes me emotional! It took 40 years of John Galliano to make me cry at a show,” remembers Louboutin. “…And the shoes!”
So now, taking a deep breath after the show of shows, Louboutin has worked on a second collection for Maison Margiela, the silhouettes drawn from the show. They have outlined a few stores, “So they will be sold at Margiela and they will be sold at Louboutin!” he exults. “Ever since I've known John,” Louboutin continues, “he has a kind of passion for tribal clothes, [clothes] from plays, from dance, from Kabuki. His brain is built boiling around that anyway.”
There are outrageous high heels, and foot-to-the-ground flats, all with the Tabi, the toe separator, off setting the glamour of the Louboutins. (Although it’s made in a whole new way, more couture and less homespun than the Margiela originals). There are also wedding shoes, with a twist. “The idea was almost like a game to play with the codes of two houses, Margiela and Louboutin. With Margiela you have deconstruction. I would call it ‘creative minimalism’ for Margiela. And for my DNA, it is almost a classical vision of femininity, a sexy femininity. So basically, for me to bring Margiela into my world."
So in a white high-heeled Tabi shoe with a streak of red paint down the heel, one can see the worlds of Margiela and Louboutin colliding. “I think it's probably the perfect marriage!” laughs Louboutin.
This story first appeared on vogue.com
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