Speaker 1: Hey everybody, thanks for pulling up a chair.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 1: We're back at the Sunset Tower Hotel in Hollywood on
Speaker 1: a glorious sunny day and we're getting a little bit
Speaker 1: of Paris in the house, which is super exciting. Bonur, Hello, Hello.
Speaker 1: Today we're having lunch with one of the most famous
Speaker 1: shoe designers ever, very identifiable issues because they all have
Speaker 1: a red soul. So we have lunch. So I hope
Speaker 1: you're hungry.
Speaker 2: I am hungry. Good. So what are you gonna have? Ales?
Speaker 1: Very good?
Speaker 2: Okay, So I have the loves of tackles.
Speaker 1: What does that red soul mean?
Speaker 2: Is it power? Is it wealth?
Speaker 1: Is it sex?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: But we are having lunch with Christian Lubiitin today at
Speaker 1: the Sunset Tower. So pull up a chair, definitely, pour
Speaker 1: yourself a glass or rose, and enjoy.
Speaker 3: I'm Bruce Bosi and this is my podcast Table for two.
Speaker 1: If you pulled up a chair today on Table for two,
Speaker 1: we're sitting with one of the most iconic designers in
Speaker 1: the world, a super incredible guy. I mean, I just
Speaker 1: got to say Christian. He is the world renown designer
Speaker 1: of one of the most famous shoes, but so many
Speaker 1: things Christian you design. Now we're having lunch with Christian Lubitan.
Speaker 1: What brings you to Los Angeles?
Speaker 4: Many things I've been doing a little too old America.
Speaker 4: I was in New Yorks, and I was in Nashville,
Speaker 4: and I was in Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: I go to San Diego.
Speaker 4: I came here for you and then done back to parents.
Speaker 2: All for.
Speaker 4: All religious religious religion, two world exactly, Okay, on some
Speaker 4: different projects.
Speaker 2: Some net going to talk to you about because it's still.
Speaker 1: Well, the lunch is young and the show has just begun.
Speaker 1: Maybe I can get Squeeze one. I can't because he's
Speaker 1: come with someone and she'll knock us out. So now
Speaker 1: I know what brings you to Los Angeles. You're on
Speaker 1: your on an American tour a little tool, yeah, which
Speaker 1: is good. And then when you go from l Aed
Speaker 1: you go back to France.
Speaker 4: I go back to France. It's it's the main reason
Speaker 4: is that my three daughters are having the It's not
Speaker 4: a party. It's the end of the it's the end
Speaker 4: of the school things or the school term. So there
Speaker 4: is like this party. So there is no way I
Speaker 4: would ever miss that.
Speaker 1: You know, you talk about your children and you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I find fascinating with you
Speaker 1: is you.
Speaker 2: Know you, you know when you.
Speaker 1: Think about your early desire or attraction to be a
Speaker 1: designer and shoes, like you were young, and for sure
Speaker 1: you were kind of a rebel, a young rebel.
Speaker 2: But you know, how do you think that began?
Speaker 1: Like what what caught your eye as a as a
Speaker 1: young as a young boy.
Speaker 2: You know, I would say rebel.
Speaker 4: I like the word rebel, and I like it for
Speaker 4: me to accepting that rebel, your you're rebellion against something.
Speaker 4: Rebel is in rebellion against something. I never was in
Speaker 4: rebellion against anything. I had the loveliest parents, So I
Speaker 4: was not in rebellion against my parents or against anything,
Speaker 4: society or whatever.
Speaker 2: I was just very free.
Speaker 4: And this is really due to my childhood and to
Speaker 4: my parents, I would say. So I own to my
Speaker 4: parents a lot of things, but the first thing I
Speaker 4: owned them is the capacity of them to allow me
Speaker 4: to really, really to be free.
Speaker 2: They never judged anything, They never judged anyone.
Speaker 4: Including their kids. So I was not a rebel, but
Speaker 4: I wasn't kind of mature, very very young boy, I
Speaker 4: would say, And from an early age I was going out.
Speaker 2: You know, I was going out when I was two.
Speaker 4: Twelve and a half, right, not you know, not coming
Speaker 4: back at the And you know I didn't have like
Speaker 4: the two am permission.
Speaker 2: I had the permission of the day after. Okay.
Speaker 1: First of all, the fact that like, because I have
Speaker 1: the Eve in sixteen seventeen and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: you need to be home at ten pm. Only the
Speaker 1: French are so coold because you know, Christians like I
Speaker 1: didn't have the you know, the two am at twelve.
Speaker 2: Twelve and a half, twelve twelve, I was still stating.
Speaker 1: You could be, but you make you say something I
Speaker 1: think is really important in a person's development, and especially
Speaker 1: when they are artistic and talented, coming from parents that
Speaker 1: allow you to be who you are and say okay
Speaker 1: because you're not rebel to rebel, I think is a
Speaker 1: very healthy thing. And when you can't do it because
Speaker 1: your parents woul squashed it, it comes out later in
Speaker 1: life in very peculiar ways. So that's very great.
Speaker 4: I mean, no, you know, even at one point when
Speaker 4: I was fourteen fifteen, I thought, you know, most of
Speaker 4: my friends were having problems issues with their parents and
Speaker 4: they had to be difficult and they hated the parents,
Speaker 4: and it seemed healthy to hate your family. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: I felt kind of bad because I never had that.
Speaker 4: I thought, Okay, one day I have to hate my mother,
Speaker 4: one day I.
Speaker 2: Have to hate my father.
Speaker 4: And I was just wondering when it was being to
Speaker 4: happen to me because I really had no reasons, and
Speaker 4: I never had any reasons. And now that they're gone,
Speaker 4: I understand that if you don't have a reason, just
Speaker 4: don't try it.
Speaker 2: And there was no reason to be against my parents.
Speaker 4: Because again, yeah, I hope it just happens to music.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh yeah, she's already cheers. She is. When you
Speaker 1: were twelve and you were sort of exploring and going out,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's wonderful that you could live at
Speaker 1: a time when you know there was just safety. You
Speaker 1: just made trusted in the fact that you were going
Speaker 1: to come on back. What was What were the influences
Speaker 1: going on around you at that time, or were their
Speaker 1: influences you know.
Speaker 2: The thing which happened to me is that.
Speaker 4: For some reason I always like to travel, or the
Speaker 4: idea of traveling. I haven't traveled. I never was out
Speaker 4: of France before the age of fifteen. Really yeah, we
Speaker 4: were staying in France going to brittany where my family
Speaker 4: is from. So we've been moving back around France. We
Speaker 4: barely made it to Spain. I think the car broke
Speaker 4: or something, so we never made it. Were stayed in
Speaker 4: the southwest of France. But I never had a problem
Speaker 4: because in a way I was traveling around my.
Speaker 2: Traveling in my bedroom and traveling in my head anyway,
Speaker 2: so it was very very very nice. And also I
Speaker 2: was preparing.
Speaker 4: I was preparing myself to be a big travel So
Speaker 4: my first passion has been funny enough. I wouldn't say
Speaker 4: escape the same way, but to drift, to drift from
Speaker 4: the it says a monotony of my child.
Speaker 2: I was not. It was not sad. It was just
Speaker 2: very monoptimist.
Speaker 4: You know, when you go on holidays at your cousins
Speaker 4: and the same place, there is a form of a
Speaker 4: mon aftterny. And so my form of escape of that
Speaker 4: was watching movies. Watching movie has been a very very
Speaker 4: big thing. And also on the way so watching movie.
Speaker 4: The problem is that so I'm born in the mid sixties,
Speaker 4: so now I'm talking of like mid seventies and late seventies.
Speaker 1: So we're very close like an h show talk so
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I know all the reference your references.
Speaker 2: Okay, so go on.
Speaker 4: So I don't know about America at that time, but
Speaker 4: in France, the cinema of the period was very naturalistic,
Speaker 4: so you know, friend on the Girl.
Speaker 2: It was all about give me an example of like
Speaker 2: a movie.
Speaker 5: You know, the Chabrol movies include Sotel movies, so all
Speaker 5: those movies where kind of bourgeoise families having issues and
Speaker 5: no one has any makeup, so it was no longer
Speaker 5: such an entertaining but all about their introspective into society problems.
Speaker 2: So as a kid, I was just not interested.
Speaker 4: Okay, I liked the Hollywood movies. With the fifties, I like,
Speaker 4: of course, like you know, the Marylands, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And even the nineteen thirties the d.
Speaker 4: Trich everything which had to say with costume or fairy
Speaker 4: tale stories, musicals, but the reality had its normalist form
Speaker 4: was very boring to me.
Speaker 2: I mean, I had it at my place.
Speaker 4: Why would I go to the cinema to see Okay,
Speaker 4: you know, I have I have some issues and do
Speaker 4: I really like my wife and do I really get
Speaker 4: along with my sister? That type of stories was really
Speaker 4: boring to me. Now retrospectively, when I see those movies
Speaker 4: with the Patina, at the time they look quite non realistic.
Speaker 4: So now I'm for interested in the seventies movie, but
Speaker 4: at the time it really bored me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The seventies with film, even in America, just leans into
Speaker 1: real realism of like people's relationships. There was the glamour
Speaker 1: should have went away, you know, movies like here like
Speaker 1: Cramer Versus Cramer or you had, you know, darg Day Afternoon,
Speaker 1: things that were like.
Speaker 2: It was so much about introspection. Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 4: It's just that when you are those topics when you
Speaker 4: are a teenager, yeah, are not for teenager and it's
Speaker 4: not for grown up. It was front and adorns the
Speaker 4: cinema of John Cassavedes. Yes, at the time, to me
Speaker 4: it was a little bit too hectic and nervous. Sure,
Speaker 4: I'm not fun nom.
Speaker 1: What were the movies then or the you know, wh
Speaker 1: worthy influences then? Was it like the Catherine Denot was
Speaker 1: it the.
Speaker 4: You know, first of all, I really liked this sixties cinema.
Speaker 2: It's a French sixties and bags on your wave. Okay,
Speaker 2: so you were a punk rocker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, explain that. Explain that to me who you were,
Speaker 1: because I didn't know that about you. And does that
Speaker 1: play and of course everyone talks about the red soul
Speaker 1: of your shoe because such an, I kind of does
Speaker 1: that play into the reason that exists?
Speaker 2: The sort of well the red sor the punk rock
Speaker 2: is there any.
Speaker 1: Sort of because it's very rock and roll, and it's
Speaker 1: very sexy and a woman crosses her legs and you
Speaker 1: see that red soul. It's very meaningful.
Speaker 2: But I want to go back to the punk rock.
Speaker 2: The Okay, thank.
Speaker 1: You, thank you, Christian The butan is a punk rocker
Speaker 1: who knew.
Speaker 4: Sheina punk rocking. She well, you know that happened in
Speaker 4: a in a very simple way. When I was going,
Speaker 4: you know, to around twelve, twelve and a half thirteen
Speaker 4: thirteen and a half, I.
Speaker 2: Ended up meeting people.
Speaker 4: So I had at one point this guy that I
Speaker 4: was dating.
Speaker 2: And his best friend who was slightly older than me.
Speaker 1: Oh really wait now, so you're I love that you
Speaker 1: were dating. So you're a how old now?
Speaker 2: Thirteen fourteen, fifteen, thirteen and a half fourteen.
Speaker 1: I mean, I should only have been so lucky to
Speaker 1: have been dating a guy at thirteen and a half
Speaker 1: fourteen French.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, so you're dating Hew, Yeah, very sweet. I
Speaker 4: remain very very close friends all my life. He's dead now, okay,
Speaker 4: but we started really really close friend anyway, one of
Speaker 4: his best friends I was like four or five years
Speaker 4: older than me, and we became very very close friend.
Speaker 4: So we were going out all the time together. Not
Speaker 4: in clubs really, we went to music at a few clubs,
Speaker 4: play really theaters, plays to a cinemat to that, and
Speaker 4: sometimes concert and he kind of put me into the
Speaker 4: punk rock music. So with him, I ended up going
Speaker 4: to a lot of concerts, a great concert you know,
Speaker 4: the punk on the seventies or the English side of
Speaker 4: the punk, which, because in France we didn't really have
Speaker 4: it was really a true hundred per so importation of
Speaker 4: the Brits. So I ended up having this punk sign
Speaker 4: of me accepting that I mixed it with in a
Speaker 4: way my sex lanity, I would say. So I was
Speaker 4: a kind of gay punk which was not really existing.
Speaker 2: So I was draping on the safety pins.
Speaker 1: Shredding up the T shirts, you know all that stuff
Speaker 1: I like really.
Speaker 4: So really aesthetic aspect of per I was not a
Speaker 4: political point.
Speaker 2: I didn't grant. It was really a movement.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of sadness in a way, in
Speaker 1: real sadness.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because of the poverty of being in the seventies,
Speaker 4: you know, when you were French. When I was as
Speaker 4: a teenager going to London, I was shocked as a
Speaker 4: poverty of London really cool. You have those being both.
Speaker 4: But he was saying, take a bath two people at
Speaker 4: the same time. It's kind of dirty and doty, you know,
Speaker 4: compared to piences. So now I wouldn't say it's the inverse,
Speaker 4: but valience has kind of stabilized and London has really emerged.
Speaker 1: Loon really has emerged.
Speaker 2: It has emerged. It's like one of the leading.
Speaker 1: Cities that sort of sets the towne now with a
Speaker 1: lot of factors. So to me, Paris is always and
Speaker 1: will I'm a New Yorker by heart, but it is
Speaker 1: the most.
Speaker 2: Beautiful city in the world. I agree.
Speaker 1: Van Firshenberg, who's very good friends with Christian, always says
Speaker 1: to me, you love the fantasy Parish, that's what you love,
Speaker 1: But I love the fantasy Prus.
Speaker 2: When you go through a city, you bring a fantais is.
Speaker 2: This is becomes the energy of the town.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on Table for two.
Speaker 3: Our guest, Christian Lubritan, is now a world renowned designer
Speaker 3: who created one of the most iconic stilettos of all time.
Speaker 3: But what inspired his transformation from rebellious punk to an
Speaker 3: icon of the design world?
Speaker 2: How do you.
Speaker 1: Pivot to becoming this young man who starts to realize, okay,
Speaker 1: what draws you to start to design and design shoes?
Speaker 1: And how do you get to that place? And the stiletto?
Speaker 1: And it was also a time I think where there
Speaker 1: was issues with the stiletto. It was sort of like
Speaker 1: not in favor, you know, like how did was that
Speaker 1: always part of like your eye?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Because I always also find it very interesting that men
Speaker 1: design beautifully for women, like the talent that you have
Speaker 1: to understanding a woman.
Speaker 2: How did that emerge?
Speaker 4: So I would say it comes from a set of
Speaker 4: things combined one thing. And I was brought up in
Speaker 4: the family with a lot of women. I had three sisters,
Speaker 4: a father who was working so who was barely there,
Speaker 4: you know, coming home in the evening, go never there
Speaker 4: during the day, sisters always around, older sister and no brother.
Speaker 4: That was it single male apart from my father. So
Speaker 4: and I was the smallest one. So I was like
Speaker 4: at a play with a lot of women. You know,
Speaker 4: when you're a small kid, even if you're a boy,
Speaker 4: le's you's a girl. Let's say you're not You're not scary,
Speaker 4: You're scary to women. So I was his little boy.
Speaker 4: I'm was not a male presence.
Speaker 2: So I was listening to my sister and I had
Speaker 2: it all.
Speaker 4: You know, the boyfriends Tom Pats it's a diet sing
Speaker 4: to save a little right female culture. And they were
Speaker 4: never thinking, Okay, here is a guy who's listening to
Speaker 4: girls stars and they were right. So from an earlier age,
Speaker 4: I developed a big thing with girls, right kind of
Speaker 4: have no secrets with me.
Speaker 2: I'm really easy. I see.
Speaker 4: There is no barriers between me and girls in general,
Speaker 4: in terms of that conversation when girls, when they're between girls,
Speaker 4: you know, they have a kind of conversation that they
Speaker 4: wouldn't have if guys are Rather it's like guys don't
Speaker 4: have the same conversation if there is a feminine presence,
Speaker 4: you know they're doing to stop. So I often say
Speaker 4: to my male friends, straight male friends, I would say,
Speaker 4: when they start to, you know, speak about girls and
Speaker 4: sometimes being kind of crude, and then they look at
Speaker 4: me they say, oh, so you know where a bit clued.
Speaker 2: Everybody, it's just joking. I said, don't want it.
Speaker 4: Girls do the same thing with your don't think that
Speaker 4: when girls are together they're so delicate, and.
Speaker 2: That's really not a problem.
Speaker 4: But I know that as a fact because I've been
Speaker 4: surrounded by women and girls from my earliest age anyway,
Speaker 4: so I've kind of knew that I wanted to do
Speaker 4: things for girls at the very big anyway. Then what
Speaker 4: happened is that with my best friend Toann, outside school,
Speaker 4: we would go to plays, to.
Speaker 2: Cinemas, but also from music home.
Speaker 4: And in Paris in the seventies, there was one thing
Speaker 4: if you go to a play, if you go to
Speaker 4: a cinema but mostly plays or music homes, et cetera,
Speaker 4: there is two acts. So second first, everybody goes out
Speaker 4: eventually to smoke a cigarette. And we realized, my friend,
Speaker 4: then when you're coming back second time, no one is
Speaker 4: asking for the ticket, you know, so everybody goes out,
Speaker 4: you come back.
Speaker 2: So we were sneaking in second act.
Speaker 4: So I barely saw any first act, but we saw
Speaker 4: every second act of every single show in Paris.
Speaker 2: So my favorite were music Home, okay, and so what's
Speaker 2: my first thing? For libergiaby that.
Speaker 4: Term mona rose leader, but Leado it was difficult to
Speaker 4: sneak in why for Libergia is the easiest, So.
Speaker 2: I ended up having this thing. I knew all the
Speaker 2: dancers now side dancers.
Speaker 4: We don't even have the name of the post, but
Speaker 4: I knew them all because when you see people, you
Speaker 4: know the chorus line. When you see them twenty times,
Speaker 4: you end up right kind of recognized. You noticing the
Speaker 4: one who is always a bit goofy, the one who
Speaker 4: is a bit rough, the one who's always late, the
Speaker 4: one who is incredible. He was the one who is
Speaker 4: really sexy, the one he's always late, you know. So
Speaker 4: I actually fought at one point to do something for
Speaker 4: this girl. Around that time, there was this museum next
Speaker 4: to where we were living. In the twelve hour on
Speaker 4: this month times, my second sister would send me there
Speaker 4: kind of to get rid of me.
Speaker 2: And how to get rid of you.
Speaker 4: And it was a museum where you had a lot
Speaker 4: of the biggest aquarium, so a lot of fishes, animals,
Speaker 4: and then on the top floors collection. It used to
Speaker 4: be called the Museum of the French Colonies, so you
Speaker 4: had a lot of collections.
Speaker 2: From the ex French colonies.
Speaker 4: So nineteen twenty nine incredibly beautiful crafted museum.
Speaker 2: Incredible everything we have to go, the.
Speaker 4: Barons, the floors, windows, the first gate, nineteen twenty nine cover.
Speaker 2: He was eighteen years old when he did first commission.
Speaker 4: Ever, wow, everything is masterpiece of the thirties really anyway.
Speaker 2: So the world and the floor were made out of mosaic.
Speaker 4: So the words a sketch when you were entering that museum,
Speaker 4: and it was a sketch showing a high heel profile
Speaker 4: and crossing red was forbidden to high heels. It was
Speaker 4: a sketch from the fifties in order to not to
Speaker 4: break the floor. But me, as a kid, I had
Speaker 4: never seen a sketch of a high heels, especially from
Speaker 4: the fifties, So I was like, why is this drawing
Speaker 4: there existing?
Speaker 2: What is that shoe? What does it mean?
Speaker 4: But because of that, I was looking at the drawing
Speaker 4: and at one point realized that it was probably which
Speaker 4: is not existing, but it was showing a heel and
Speaker 4: it was forbidden to.
Speaker 2: Spikey thing because it would break the floor.
Speaker 4: So it's a starting point where I realized that everything
Speaker 4: starts by a sketch and everything you see. We're in
Speaker 4: this restaurant that has started by a sketch. Someone has
Speaker 4: designed that microphone. That plate has been designed somehow somewhere
Speaker 4: by someone by not a very interesting plat.
Speaker 2: I was going to say that the same thing for
Speaker 2: the interesting the chair has been designed. You know, you've
Speaker 2: got studs on that chair.
Speaker 4: So all of this made me realize that everything starts
Speaker 4: by someone's brain going through the hand and start sketching,
Speaker 4: and then it becomes on at a reality.
Speaker 1: How over you again? So I just remember I'm contuctual
Speaker 1: as well. Jesus a twelve eleven twelve year for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah wow.
Speaker 1: I was watching Charlie's Angels in New York from my
Speaker 1: pajamas and you are, m.
Speaker 2: No, I was not. And so because of that, I
Speaker 2: really started to understand that there is a starting.
Speaker 4: Point to almost everything, and it has to go by
Speaker 4: from you to your hand, to your braind to your voice,
Speaker 4: whatever you want to do. Right, So I started to
Speaker 4: sketch that shoe, changing the high, changing the column, but
Speaker 4: kind of the same profile shoe and then because of
Speaker 4: that at school, people were starting to give me things
Speaker 4: information about shoes, because I was not this mad boy
Speaker 4: who was this, you know with design shoes on the
Speaker 4: tables in papers.
Speaker 2: You know, I was thrown out of school.
Speaker 4: Because I was like skating on the tables doing directly sketches.
Speaker 2: Anyway, it started like that. So I combined my love.
Speaker 4: For drawing shoes to my love of show girls, because
Speaker 4: when I was looking at those girls, I thought, so
Speaker 4: not girls and like revery birds, you know, softed birds,
Speaker 4: because I have all those houses.
Speaker 2: So I thought, what can I do for those birds?
Speaker 1: I love this?
Speaker 2: You see this like.
Speaker 1: Cross No, so that's no, that's not that's the rebel
Speaker 1: too in you. You're putting you don't know, but you're
Speaker 1: putting it together. The glamour of the show girl, the reverence,
Speaker 1: not the objectrification.
Speaker 4: So if I was looking at them, I didn't think, okay,
Speaker 4: I could do costume because they didn't have costumes. They
Speaker 4: were kind of naked with a lot of further unnaturally
Speaker 4: birds half further. So I didn't think, okay, I have
Speaker 4: to do for those women women birds. So I thought, okay,
Speaker 4: the thing which is not natural to.
Speaker 2: Birds, right, is right, So.
Speaker 4: I feel that's what I'm going to do. I'm going
Speaker 4: to do design the shoes for show Girls. That's actually
Speaker 4: the first job that I had.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this, When you had that
Speaker 1: first shoe, that first letter with the red.
Speaker 2: What do you feel like? Did you what did it
Speaker 2: look like?
Speaker 1: Was it black? Was it sparkling?
Speaker 4: Was you know, it felt like in a way, I'm
Speaker 4: going to say a weird word, honesty. Why honessed it?
Speaker 4: Because I'm always trying to be as faithful as my
Speaker 4: first initials phots or drawings, for instance, And what happened
Speaker 4: for the red sord is that I sketched. I was
Speaker 4: sketching a lot of sketches, and they were all with
Speaker 4: bright colors, and I was in the spine actually pretty
Speaker 4: much by Andy Warhorn's water colors, you know, the six
Speaker 4: and so everything was really pop.
Speaker 2: Colors, vibet colors.
Speaker 4: So when I did the first prototype of one of
Speaker 4: that sketches, which were full of colors, and there.
Speaker 2: Was no black, no brown, no badges, no tope, no gray,
Speaker 2: you know, it was really right right right right.
Speaker 4: So when the first shoe arrived from that series of
Speaker 4: shoes that I had drawn, I had the drawing in
Speaker 4: my hand, and I had this prototype in my other hand,
Speaker 4: and the drawing looked better, and I felt, why so
Speaker 4: turning the shoe, which was good turning the shoe.
Speaker 2: At one point the shoe became almost black.
Speaker 4: Because I turned it, and then there was this big
Speaker 4: black soul, and I thought, that's not in my drawing.
Speaker 4: So it's not a big amount of dark black in
Speaker 4: the drawing. So I thought, I have to remove the
Speaker 4: black to see if it gives something to my skitch
Speaker 4: from my sketch. So I took a nail polish. There
Speaker 4: was his girl, Sarah, who was like doing her nails
Speaker 4: with an italy, so.
Speaker 2: I took her nail polish.
Speaker 4: We had a bit of a fight, you know, we
Speaker 4: were in the factual, but I said, come on, give
Speaker 4: me a let me try something, please, okay.
Speaker 2: So I got the nail polished, I painted, I removed
Speaker 2: the black. I didn't add the red.
Speaker 4: I removed the black, and then it became red, a
Speaker 4: bright color. And then suddenly it hit me that it
Speaker 4: suddenly it really looked my primary sketch, and so it
Speaker 4: was almost like magic. Here it comes back to life
Speaker 4: the sketch. That's why I say honesty, but it's more
Speaker 4: to be faithful to you know, as a designer.
Speaker 2: You invent things.
Speaker 4: Okay, so you're inventing a woman, you're inventing a silhouette,
Speaker 4: to inventing legs, inventing something.
Speaker 2: And when you are.
Speaker 4: Sketching, because it's a thing to be a stylist and
Speaker 4: to style, it's another thing to be drawing.
Speaker 2: It's not the same school again, no judgment, it's just different.
Speaker 1: No, it's a different talent, it's a different So that's
Speaker 1: an incredible story. It's you know, it's an incredible realization.
Speaker 1: And I bet you could never have imagined the impact
Speaker 1: and the sort of life that that took.
Speaker 2: Gone. No, that's full shit.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Table for two. Over the years, Christian's
Speaker 3: brand has reached out from shoes to handbags, perfumes, and
Speaker 3: much more. His famous red bottomed lubutans are now worn
Speaker 3: by actresses and films and on red carpets around the world.
Speaker 3: But it all started with one shoe salon in Paris.
Speaker 1: When did you know, like, okay, I'm going to open
Speaker 1: my own working more to my own story in ninety
Speaker 1: one and how did that feel? Did you remember the
Speaker 1: opening day and did you have like a slew of
Speaker 1: different design like what did it look like? What did
Speaker 1: it feel like?
Speaker 4: But what happened is that I've been working for different people.
Speaker 4: So I started to work when I was eighteen. I
Speaker 4: worked for the Funny bel there and then after a
Speaker 4: few months I realized that I had a great time,
Speaker 4: but it was not much to do because this is
Speaker 4: not Broadway, right, this is nineteen eighty two, nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 2: There is no money in French production for place.
Speaker 4: So I'm like, Okay, if I really want to do
Speaker 4: my designs, I have to work for fashion.
Speaker 2: So I stopped and called.
Speaker 4: The fashion houses, took the yellow pages started by A
Speaker 4: no One B Balma.
Speaker 2: No one answered d GEO And I called.
Speaker 4: The house of Deal and I said, was you it's
Speaker 4: my name is Can I speak to the director? Because
Speaker 4: the woman who the phone says, ah, what director? I said,
Speaker 4: director that I cout to your director? All this madam
Speaker 4: the marta mar let me go through. And then I
Speaker 4: started to speak to that lovely woman. She's been my
Speaker 4: first ferry really wow, and she says, what are you doing?
Speaker 4: I probably had like.
Speaker 2: This little voice think she said, my little boy, what
Speaker 2: are you doing? I said, shoes. You want to show
Speaker 2: your shoes to me? I say yes, So come when
Speaker 2: do you want to come? So I had a meeting.
Speaker 2: I had that point. I came. She liked the shoes.
Speaker 4: She had just come back from Charles Rodon, which was
Speaker 4: this big company factory of shoes.
Speaker 2: She said, Joey is fabricated a childs at all? Do
Speaker 2: you want to work there? I say yes. Until it
Speaker 2: started as simple as that. Wow.
Speaker 4: Now it's also to tell you how much fashion has changed,
Speaker 4: because I think that if you call the house of
Speaker 4: your without knowing no one, I don't think you go
Speaker 4: very far one hundred.
Speaker 1: You're not going to go very far any direction, which
Speaker 1: is so interesting because it's so sad because so much
Speaker 1: great talent that might be out there can't get through
Speaker 1: to people like her, like madam, who's just like, oh,
Speaker 1: you said, okay, can you show me your shoes?
Speaker 4: It was when I say that with no nostalgy, because
Speaker 4: you know things are changing, but it was a different area,
Speaker 4: you know, the way no groups for the passion did
Speaker 4: not exist. You had the house of the own. Mister
Speaker 4: deal was dead, but it was belonging to one person.
Speaker 4: You had the house of son. It was been on
Speaker 4: into someone mister if san Roman who was alive. The
Speaker 4: house of was be there who was alive digital ship
Speaker 4: and mister every house had his household, his name.
Speaker 2: His person right.
Speaker 4: It was not brands, it was names directly connected to
Speaker 4: a real person.
Speaker 1: What a magical time that you came of age in
Speaker 1: that moment because you were still because you're still embodied that.
Speaker 1: I mean you still you know, you have a body
Speaker 1: that your that is a sort of generosity and the
Speaker 1: and the love this view because that's true, that's where
Speaker 1: you come from. Yeah, you know people are now designing
Speaker 1: and Instagram and social media. They're putting things on they
Speaker 1: have like sort of a different avenue. But I think
Speaker 1: it's very different. It's it's not I don't think it
Speaker 1: doesn't work in the same way.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know how well you know.
Speaker 4: I think that one thing has entered this era for
Speaker 4: the fashion world is that there is a lot of
Speaker 4: moneys in it and money doesn't destroy everything. That when
Speaker 4: money is becoming the first topic, things.
Speaker 2: Are very different.
Speaker 4: Yes, And when I started my company, I didn't know
Speaker 4: what I was going to do.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to do beautiful shoes for great women. Right.
Speaker 4: I didn't think, Okay, I'm going to build something. I'm
Speaker 4: going to build a huge company. I'm going to build
Speaker 4: an empire.
Speaker 2: I had no nothing in my head thinking around me
Speaker 2: designing a shoe.
Speaker 4: I was designing shoes, and I had this great possibility
Speaker 4: to have one store to show what I was doing.
Speaker 2: That's what I wanted.
Speaker 4: And then it started by one place and that's about it.
Speaker 2: But I didn't have any master plans or you know.
Speaker 4: I received an award a few years ago, and then
Speaker 4: I had that antic, so whatever's achievement of world or something.
Speaker 4: And then there was a younger designer doing the same
Speaker 4: thing shoes, and so there was this booklet and so
Speaker 4: there was a profile and the designers, there was a
Speaker 4: profile on me. There was a profile and the few awarded,
Speaker 4: and then the person had just started his own company
Speaker 4: that maybe three years before. And then it was like
Speaker 4: in ten years, this in twenty years out, and I
Speaker 4: was thinking, man, why do you give yourself such hard
Speaker 4: things on your shoulders to see what's to happen to
Speaker 4: you don't put yourself right in ten years.
Speaker 2: I want to have achieved that, because you men not
Speaker 2: have achieved and it's.
Speaker 4: Not meaning that you're wrong or you should be unhappy.
Speaker 4: Life may carry you in some different corners in different places.
Speaker 2: Don't shrink yourself to a target specific.
Speaker 4: If I had to put myself a target in ninety one,
Speaker 4: I would have probably been dead by anxiety. You know,
Speaker 4: I never had an anxiety because I let the thing going.
Speaker 4: Now I have to be slightly more organized because the
Speaker 4: company has become a company whatever.
Speaker 1: But it's do you feel when was the moment that
Speaker 1: you saw this is now a thing?
Speaker 2: Was it a woman? Was it natural?
Speaker 1: Like? When did you say, oh, this is this is
Speaker 1: now it this is a thing.
Speaker 4: I tell you exactly perfect when because it's in your town,
Speaker 4: I mean in here as we're in New York, letter
Speaker 4: in where you live now.
Speaker 2: In La, I was taking back to planes, so I
Speaker 2: was doing La.
Speaker 4: X Harris, and I was smuggling back some shoes of mine.
Speaker 4: So from the store here, from the first door that
Speaker 4: I had in La, I brought back some shoes to palace.
Speaker 4: So I had a bag litmut turn bag, and then
Speaker 4: I go through you know when you go to the
Speaker 4: detector black hand luggage, and then there was the bag
Speaker 4: and the shoes, and so it went and it ring
Speaker 4: because of the metal. And then one of the women,
Speaker 4: you know, the police woman brought it, started screaming, and
Speaker 4: I feel what happened?
Speaker 2: And then.
Speaker 4: I thought, wow, Now if at the airport people screamed
Speaker 4: my name, I probably did something right right here.
Speaker 1: That is a great story. When you see let's just
Speaker 1: say an actress and award show movie, you see these
Speaker 1: very glamorous women and then you notice the heel and
Speaker 1: you know, I've seen it recently and a lot of
Speaker 1: things that have happened.
Speaker 2: What is the heel?
Speaker 1: What do you think that woman is saying? Because I
Speaker 1: think they know what they're putting on their feet and
Speaker 1: they want the world to see that red sauce? Like,
Speaker 1: what do you think that?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 1: I mean it means I think, probably something different to everybody.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 4: I think it means something different to everybody because everyone
Speaker 4: has their own way of carrying themselves and the you know,
Speaker 4: their own choices for different reasons. But last time I
Speaker 4: saw something, I saw it.
Speaker 2: On a TV. Thing I saw as in DAYA and.
Speaker 4: What what what that shoe smelling? And she took the shoes,
Speaker 4: She took one of her red sauce, and she says
Speaker 4: to me, it is a smell of success. And with
Speaker 4: her beautiful eyes, with a really incredible body, lane shoulders,
Speaker 4: sleepy eyes getting very wide open.
Speaker 2: Right, she did it brilliantly.
Speaker 4: So that's an example of that also for other people.
Speaker 4: And it's you know, being a free spirit, being a
Speaker 4: liberated person, being in charge, know exactly independence.
Speaker 2: Also, I remember this woman telling me that she felt
Speaker 2: obliged to wear heels because of me.
Speaker 4: So as I'm sorry, you do whatever you want, you
Speaker 4: don't have to wear but she said, no, I have
Speaker 4: to explain you. I applied for a job and I
Speaker 4: had a pair of your shoes and I got the job.
Speaker 4: My boss saw me, he didn't look at the shoe,
Speaker 4: but I discussed with him eye contact, with eye level,
Speaker 4: and she said, but from now on, it's important for
Speaker 4: me with my relationship with my boss to have the
Speaker 4: same level the eye contact because if suddenly I look
Speaker 4: at him just like you know, gone, because he's kind
Speaker 4: of higher than it would change our working relationships. So
Speaker 4: it's important for me to keep up this eye contact
Speaker 4: to the same level.
Speaker 2: She said.
Speaker 4: I'm not approaching this to you, I'm just telling you
Speaker 4: that it has shaped a relationship in my work with
Speaker 4: my boss.
Speaker 2: It's amazing and use that so everyone is different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you also do something that I just feel, as
Speaker 1: you know, people should know about you. As you know,
Speaker 1: you're involved with Idris and Sabrina Elbow with a Walk
Speaker 1: of Mile in My Shoes, which raise you've raised over
Speaker 1: two million dollars too, and all of it goes towards
Speaker 1: organizations and support social equality, all coming from the Racial
Speaker 1: Injustices of twenty twenty one. Yeah, I just think that
Speaker 1: that's the guy you are. You get back you and
Speaker 1: I didn't know that you were involved in that organization,
Speaker 1: and I think it's really important to know, you know.
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's important.
Speaker 4: I know as a fact that I am in many
Speaker 4: ways very privileged.
Speaker 2: And but it's not because you are.
Speaker 4: Very privileged or even privileged, that you forget about the
Speaker 4: rest of people the rest of the world, you know,
Speaker 4: it's not.
Speaker 2: On the opposite, I think that if you are privileged,
Speaker 2: you have.
Speaker 4: Very little excuse to not to help people who are
Speaker 4: not privileged, because that otherwise that really creates barriers between
Speaker 4: privileged people or non privileged and you.
Speaker 2: Don't need to dig that hole very much.
Speaker 4: On the opposite, so you know, I think that it's
Speaker 4: a I don't take as a mission. I think it's
Speaker 4: very normal to give back because it's it is so important.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is so important.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: I have traveled in many, many places, and again I
Speaker 4: realize every time I'm traveling, how much.
Speaker 2: As a French person I am privileged. I'm privileged to have.
Speaker 4: A passport where you can go in many places and
Speaker 4: then have different things.
Speaker 2: I am really highly privileged.
Speaker 4: It doesn't make me feel better to be privileged versus
Speaker 4: people who are not privilege.
Speaker 2: You have to help, you know, and.
Speaker 4: Even on my selfish way, it makes you feel good,
Speaker 4: you know, it makes you feeling makes you feel good.
Speaker 4: But so many things make difference for people, and it
Speaker 4: doesn't really even.
Speaker 2: Make a difference to you, but it really makes a difference.
Speaker 2: It has an impact, so it raises the brain. Now
Speaker 2: are great on that.
Speaker 4: Because it's now the third years that we're doing that collection,
Speaker 4: and they're both very involved and one has a person.
Speaker 2: Of the collection.
Speaker 4: Goes to all the process of the collection goes to
Speaker 4: six charities. According every year, we're changing.
Speaker 2: A bit, but it's it's super important.
Speaker 4: I don't necessarily speak about it because it's not the
Speaker 4: heart of my job, but it's to it's important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think, and I know you don't. And
Speaker 1: that's why I wanted to mention, because I.
Speaker 6: Feel like it's important for people to know that not
Speaker 6: only are you multi facity but giving back and you know,
Speaker 6: you get back not for the recognition.
Speaker 1: But for the cause, because, like you said, you sit
Speaker 1: in a seat that allows you to be generous and
Speaker 1: to do make a difference in this world. And at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, we're here for a short.
Speaker 2: Amount of time, you know, just like let's saying Angelina Journey.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she is for many people, this beautiful woman, beautiful actress.
Speaker 4: It hasn't stopped her to be strongly, yes and powerfully
Speaker 4: into being a great activity. When I see her, have
Speaker 4: the biggest respect right for many reasons, right, but one
Speaker 4: of the reasons is out to now it's pretty obvious
Speaker 4: and she's been, you know, using her platform her faith
Speaker 4: for that which is great.
Speaker 2: Bad again, you can be somewhere and somewhere else.
Speaker 1: Right, any just thoughts on the changing the evolution of
Speaker 1: men's fashion with heels, with dresses with you know, you
Speaker 1: were one of the first. I love a heel and
Speaker 1: I always love that. I love your shoes. And I
Speaker 1: remember the first sort of shoe that had a heel,
Speaker 1: and it is a big heel I still had.
Speaker 2: It was your that you designed from men. What were you.
Speaker 1: Surprised to see all of a sudden this like? Or
Speaker 1: are surprised when you look at men on the red
Speaker 1: carpet and what they're wearing, how they're presenting themselves today.
Speaker 2: You know, I think it's a good thing. But it's
Speaker 2: coming again. If you look in the history, men have
Speaker 2: been on the heels for a long, long, long time.
Speaker 2: Seventeenth century hels uh huh, men were wearing.
Speaker 4: Makeup, right, men were having further and the heads, you know,
Speaker 4: jol Mira, who was the biggest general during Napotian period,
Speaker 4: was full of further wearing his head draped into you know, fur.
Speaker 4: So it was this thing, and then you know, it's
Speaker 4: this kind of bourgeois establishment when kind of reduced a
Speaker 4: lot of possibility for men. Right, So, now that it's back,
Speaker 4: it's a great thing.
Speaker 2: I think so too. It's a great thing. I'll embrace it.
Speaker 2: I cannot myself where Yes, it kills my back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it kills my I love a heel and I
Speaker 1: love your heels, like, yeah, I am at an age
Speaker 1: where it's coming like that. Your shoes they're very sexual.
Speaker 1: There's a lot and do you think your early years
Speaker 1: since you brought that into like your ability to sort
Speaker 1: of have come into your sexuality early has helped. Like,
Speaker 1: your shoes are very not just sexy, but like sex.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2: Where yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. First, it depends on
Speaker 2: the shoe, because I've been doing a lot.
Speaker 4: Of flat, flat shoes, flats, and that's.
Speaker 2: It can be. After said you know it again, it
Speaker 2: depends on people front.
Speaker 4: And one of the sexiest women ever now I don't
Speaker 4: know if people remember, but it was Bridget Bardle, Bridge Badle.
Speaker 4: If you think of budget Budle, it's a waste. And
Speaker 4: then flat ballerina right and very very low cleavage ballerinas,
Speaker 4: so not even Hills, and she is really the epitome
Speaker 4: of sexy in the sixties. So everyone can bring sexiness
Speaker 4: from their.
Speaker 2: Own behavior and their own body language.
Speaker 4: But it's true that he is to me brings and
Speaker 4: I love flat, I love boots, I love everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just don't like clubs.
Speaker 1: That's really no clogs.
Speaker 2: Can I tell you why?
Speaker 4: Yeah, because clubs there is this When I hear someone coming,
Speaker 4: you know, I buy the sound and I'm able to
Speaker 4: tell you, Okay, it's a girl on the mule.
Speaker 2: It's someone in the pump, it's someone with a platform.
Speaker 4: But I still think it's a guy, or it's a woman,
Speaker 4: but it's a human beinness.
Speaker 2: When I hear I think, okay, here comes a donkey.
Speaker 4: You know, the noise of the cloud reminds me of
Speaker 4: animal work. I never can approach a human when I
Speaker 4: hear the sound of a c So it's not even
Speaker 4: about the study. It's about the sounds. The music is
Speaker 4: important to me. So sound is important.
Speaker 2: You know. When I hear that, I'm hearing flemented.
Speaker 4: You know, there is so many sounds attached to music
Speaker 4: by I mean Beyonce, the sound, you know whatever you
Speaker 4: know it sounds comes with music, clothes comes with farming.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things the takeaway is as an artist,
Speaker 1: as a designer, so many influences come into you Christ
Speaker 1: which is influence your design, which is you know, music
Speaker 1: and art and prois and you know, the beauty of
Speaker 1: life right to be you and to have influence and people,
Speaker 1: and like that you said it perfectly. When the TSA
Speaker 1: agent yells, oh my god, you know you've made it, man,
Speaker 1: you know you've made it.
Speaker 2: I was very happy. I was almost ready to be
Speaker 2: very fair. I had to bring them back. That was
Speaker 2: for customers, would.
Speaker 1: Chest and thank you for joining us today on Table
Speaker 1: for two. If you've listened, I hope you have enjoyed
Speaker 1: this as much as I have.
Speaker 2: Decided was delicious.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna finish. I am for teach me something that
Speaker 1: I should know how to say. I find friends.
Speaker 2: Something you should know when you come to friends. Yes,
Speaker 2: like move your.
Speaker 7: Answer something, Yeah, move your assa.
Speaker 3: Table for two with Bruce Bosi is produced by iHeart
Speaker 3: Radio seven three seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers
Speaker 3: are Bruce Bosi and Nathan King. Our supervising producer and
Speaker 3: editor is Dylan Fagan. Table for two is researched and
Speaker 3: written by Jack Sullivan. Our sound engineers are mel b Klein,
Speaker 3: Jess Krainich, Evan Taylor, and Jesse Funk. Our music supervisor
Speaker 3: is Randall Poster. Our talent booking is done by Jane Sarkin.
Speaker 3: Table for two social media manager is Gracie Wiener. Special
Speaker 3: thanks to Amy Sugarman, Uni Scherer, Kevin You've, Bobby Bauer,
Speaker 3: Alison Kanter Graber, Barbara Jen, Jeff Klein, and the staff
Speaker 3: at the Tower Bar in the world famous Sunset Tower
Speaker 3: Hotel in Hollywood. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 3: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 3: favorite shows.