Christian Louboutin & the law: a shoe designer’s fairytale paved with lawful lessons

Christian Louboutin & the law

1. Who is Christian Louboutin? The man behind the mythical brand!

Christian Louboutin, born on 7 January 1963, is a French fashion designer who founded his world-famous and eponymous shoe business in 1991, after freelancing for several Paris fashion houses as a designer.

Mr Louboutin is the biological son of Irene Louboutin, a homemaker originally from Brittany, and her lover, who was Egyptian. Christian Louboutin knew nothing of this dalliance, and thought of himself as the only son of Roger Louboutin, a cabinet-maker, and Irene, his lawful wife, until one of his sisters (he is the fourth child, born after three sisters) told him this secret in 2014.

Indeed, Christian Louboutin said in a 2012 interview, ‟You know, I felt I wasn’t French. My family was very French and so I decided they had probably adopted me. But instead of feeling it was terrible and that I was an outsider who had to go and find my real family, I invented my own history, full of characters from Egypt because I was very into the pharaohs.” So, subliminally, Mr Louboutin knew that something was off, from the start, with respect to his true origins and racial background.

While this disturbing state of affairs caused him to be expelled from school three times, then to drop out of school entirely, and also to run away from home at the age of 12, at which point his mother allowed him to move out to live at a friend’s house, Mr Louboutin forged his own, extremely independent and singular path as a fashion designer very early on.

This draws a comparison with Olivier Rousteing, a younger French designer who has been at the creative helm of French fashion house Balmain since 2011 (when he was only 25 years’ old!), and who was adopted at the age of one, after his 15-year-old biological and anonymous mother gave him up for adoption. In 2019, while contributing to the making of a documentary about him, ‟Wonder boy”, Mr Rousteing discovered that he is fully African, with a Somali birth mother and an Ethiopian birth father. Like Christian Louboutin, Olivier Rousteing dropped out of school (he left French fashion school ESMOD in his first year, citing lack of creative freedom). Both Christian Louboutin and Olivier Rousteing are among the very rare creative directors with French citizenship who head French fashion houses today, along with Simon Jacquemus (who is another drop out from ESMOD).

Another characteristic that those three French fashion designers have in common is that they are openly gay.

Christian Louboutin was, as a preteen, one of the ‟Bande du Palace”, a group of hard-partying teens and preteens who were a fixture of the Parisian nightclub ‟Le Palace”.

Mr Louboutin’s passion for designing shoes started at a young age, overshadowing his interest in academics and leading him towards a successful career in fashion. Going through a punk phase, he acted in a few films, including the 1979 cult classic ‟Race d’ep” and ‟The homosexual century”. His first job was at the mythical Parisian cabaret, les ‟Folies Bergères”, where he assisted the entertainers backstage. He was also a fixture on the city’s party scene, alongside Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol.

Christian Louboutin had little formal training, including drawing and the decorative arts at the ‟Académie d’Art Roederer”. He said that his fascination with shoes began in 1976, when he visited the ‟Musée national des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie” (now renamed ‟Palais de la Porte Dorée”), on the avenue Daumesnil in Paris. It was there that he saw a sign forbidding women wearing sharp stilettos from entering the building for fear of damage to the extensive wood flooring. This image stayed in his mind, and he later used this idea in his designs, wanting ‟to defy that, wanting to create something that broke rules and made women feel confident and empowered” (sic). And he succeeded, because, from 2020 to 2021, Christian Louboutin exhibited many of his pointed and high shoes, in a delightful retrospective called ‟The exhibitionist” at the very same ‟Palais de la Porte Dorée”!

After trips to Egypt and then India, Mr Louboutin returned to Paris in 1981, where he assembled a portfolio of drawings of elaborate high heels. He brought it to the top couture houses and his efforts resulted in employment with French shoe-maker staple, Charles Jourdan. Later, Christian Louboutin met luxury shoe designer Roger Vivier, who invented the modern stiletto, or spiked-heel shoe, and the chrome-plated buckle pump, in the 1950s. Mr Louboutin became an apprentice in Roger Vivier’s atelier.

Going on to serve as a freelance designer, Christian Louboutin designed women’s shoes for Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Maud Frizon, another shoe designer with name-brand caché in the 1980s.

In the late 1980s, he turned away from fashion to become a landscape gardener, and to contribute to Vogue, but missed working with shoes and therefore set up his own shoe business in 1991.

2. Creation of the Christian Louboutin business

With funds from two financial backers, Henry Seydoux (who sold his stake in the 2021 deal with Exor, but more on this below) and Bruno Chambelland, who were also Mr Louboutin’s best friends, he incorporated his first company, Christian Louboutin ‟Société par Actions Simplifiée” (‟Christian Louboutin SAS”), on 5 February 1991. He also opened a Paris shoe boutique, in the galerie Véro-Dodat, rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in the 1er arrondissement, in November 1991.

Princess Caroline of Monaco was his first customer, and complimented his store, one day, when a fashion journalist was present, with this journalist’s subsequent publication of the princess’ comments helping greatly to increase Christian Louboutin’s renown. Well-known fashionistas, such as Diane Von Furstenberg and Catherine Deneuve, became devoted clients. Later devotees of his stiletto heels included Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Lopez, Dita Von Teese and Sarah Jessica Parker, who even wore Louboutins on her wedding day.

In his first year of business, in 1991, Christian Louboutin SAS sold 200 pairs of shoes. Then, it boasted a sales increase from more than 300,000 pairs sold in 2009, to 700,000 in 2011. In 2024, the business produced more than 1 million pairs of shoes.

Today, the Christian Louboutin group of companies has more than 160 boutiques in 32 countries across four continents, including 35 in the United States, 23 in Japan and 20 in China.

Since 1991, it has become an international brand, with the United States of America accounting for 52 percent of Louboutin’s sales. Europe, the Middle East and Russia represent 30 percent of the brand’s turnover and Asia 18 percent.

Christian Louboutin SAS seems to not have filed its annual accounts with the French equivalent of Companies House, the ‟greffe du tribunal de commerce” of Paris, since 2005 (while this is a commercial law offence) and it is a private company limited by shares. So, while its finances and annual accounts are opaque and hidden, we nonetheless know that the shoe company has said that its goal is to achieve 1 billion Euros of annual turnover in 2025.

Christian Louboutin SAS has also said that, from its annual turnover, 95 percent comes from the sale of its shoes, with the remainder derived from purses and handbags and now, cosmetics.

In 2009, wholesale purchases represented 88 percent of the business. Overseas, Christian Louboutin SAS has partnered with Pedder Group of Hong Kong, China, for distribution in their Asian markets and the Chalhoub Group of the United Arab Emirates for their representation in the Middle East.

Today, the Christian Louboutin group of companies has over 1,900 employees worldwide (referred to as ‟Loubi’s angels”).

It has grown into a luxury fashion brand of footwear, handbags and small leather goods, kids and pet accessories, cosmetics and perfumes, and accessories for men and women, which are mainly manufactured in Milan, Italy. However, Christian Louboutin does maintain a small atelier, in the galerie Véro-Dodat, rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, where his first store is still located, for private customers and one-of-a-kind creations.

Louboutins can sell from USD800 and up, with crystal-encrusted pairs costing up to USD6,000. The base price for a custom-made pair of Louboutins is USD4,000. If the style already exists, it is the standard price plus 30 percent.

Christian Louboutin SAS was valued at 3.2 billion Euros in 2023 by Exor, the investment company of Italy’s Agnelli family, which bought a 24 percent stake in 2021 for about USD650 million (in particular from Henry Seydoux, one of the two initial financial backers who launched the business with Christian Louboutin in 1991). Christian Louboutin still owns 35 percent, which Forbes values at USD1.1 billion. That stake makes up most of an estimated USD1.2 billion fortune that includes other investments such as the Vermelho Hotel, a luxury resort he opened in southern Portugal in 2023.

Christian Louboutin topped the Luxury Institute‘s annual Luxury Brand Status Index for three years, the brand’s offerings were declared the Most Prestigious Women’s shoes in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

By 2011, Christian Louboutin became the most searched-for shoe brand online.

The Couture council of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology honoured Christian Louboutin with its 2019 Couture Council Award for Artistry in Fashion in New York City on 4 September 2019.

Two delightful retrospectives of his work took place, first at the Design Museum in London in 2011, and then at the ‟Palais de la Porte Dorée” in 2020, which broke records for attendance and sealed Christian Louboutin’s reputation as one of the most talented and fun shoe designers of the 21st century.

3. The management team at Christian Louboutin

Christian Louboutin SAS is headed by luxury business veteran Alexis Mourot, CEO and president of the executive board, and Bruno Chambelland, president of the surveillance counsel and one of the two original financial backers in the Christian Louboutin business, back in 1991.

Christian Louboutin and Antoine Chambelland are both deputy managing directors and members of the executive board of Christian Louboutin SAS.

Magali Clément, group head of human resources, Xavier Ragot, general counsel group, Hugo Marchand, studio director and Gilles Martocq, chief financial officer, are also all members of the executive board of Christian Louboutin SAS.

In 2021, Christian Louboutin also assigned some of his hundreds of trademarks, which he owned in his own name and then licenced back to Christian Louboutin SAS in exchange for royalties, to French notaries ‟Clermon & Associés”. This assignment was probably done by way of ‟fiducie” i.e. a French law-governed contract whereby a person (the ‟constituant”) transfers all or part of their assets to another person (the ‟fiduciaire”), with the mission for the latter to act on behalf of one or several beneficiaries. ‟Fiducie” is the French equivalent structure to a trust, and was introduced in France by law in February 2007.

One can imagine that, since Christian Louboutin now has two young twin daughters, he not only wants to spend more time with them by being less involved in the day-to-day running of his business, but also wishes to ensure that his daughters will benefit from his vast wealth and revenue streams generated, in particular, by the royalties derived from the licences on his huge portfolio of trademarks.

4.1. The ‟red sole blues”

Over the past 30 years, designer Christian Louboutin has built a fashion empire based on his shoes and their distinctive red soles. As it happens, some other shoe designers and manufacturers also like the concept of red-sole shoes, and this is where the situation becomes more complex.

Mr Louboutin, owner of the international semi-figurative trademark represented by a red sole on which is written ‟Christian Louboutin”, filed with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (‟WIPO”), initially under French priority of the (now expired) French trademark registered on 29 November 2000, and Christian Louboutin SAS, owner of the exclusive licence allowing it to operate the trademark, have combated, with mixed results, any attempt by other fashion and luxury goods companies to use red soles on shoes.

In December 2007, Christian Louboutin and his company sued the Italian shoe brand Cesare Paciotti for trademark imitation, unfair competition and parasitism, as well as damage allegedly done to the reputation of the Louboutin brand. However, the Paris court of first instance rejected those claims, which were based on Cesare Paciotti’s commercialisation of one pair of red-sole shoes.

Mr Louboutin and his company fared better in January 2011, when the Paris court of first instance ruled in their favour, finding that Eden Shoes had damaged the reputation of the famous Louboutin brand by using red soles, ‟diminishing the trademark’s attractiveness in customers’ eyes by making it banal”, and leading to a loss of consumer interest and resulting business for Christian Louboutin SAS, the exclusive licensee of the trademark.

Christian Louboutin suffered a new setback on 22 June 2011, when the Paris court of appeal overturned a 2008 Paris court of first instance ruling in his favour, in a dispute with the fast-retailer Zara, over its choice of a red sole for its products. Criticising the absence of a three-dimensional representation of Mr Louboutin’s French trademark and its lack of distinctiveness, clarity and exactitude, as well as a lack of precision in relation to the claimed red colour, the court of appeal declared Christian Louboutin’s trademark invalid. The court justified its decision to invalidate the French trademark on the grounds that ‟it was not immediately identifiable as the representation of a sole, such interpretation only coming to mind after reading the descriptive summary that Christian Louboutin had judged useful to add” on the register. The court of appeal further denied the right to trademark a concept, i.e. the idea of systematically putting bright red soles on shoes produced by the same brand. Further, the court of appeal ruled that letting the first-instance decision stand, which sentenced Zara for unfair competition and parasitism, would be tantamount to forbidding anyone to sell red-sole shoes, apart from Christian Louboutin and his company. Such a claim, according to the court, would be exorbitant and ‟the fact that the fashion press and sophisticated consumers associated the brand with a red sole would not justify the perpetual appropriation, by Christian Louboutin’s company, of the concept consisting of systematically putting red soles on women’s shoes”. On 30 May 2012, in a major blow for Mr Louboutin and his company, the French supreme court confirmed the court of appeal’s decision, thereby irrevocably invalidating Christian Louboutin’s French trademark. The ‟cour de cassation” further upheld the court of appeal’s rejection of the Louboutin company’s allegations of unfair competition, parasitism and risk of confusion, because the retail price for a pair of Zara’s red-sole shoes was 49 Euros, about one-tenth of the price of a pair of Louboutins, which meant that those two companies were operating on two totally distinct markets.

So, does this decision by the French courts mean that Christian Louboutin can successfully sue over alleged unfair competition and parasitism only in the case of red-sole shoes that are sold within the same price range as Mr Louboutin’s shoes?

The fashion and legal communities got an answer to this very question when the US court of appeals for the second circuit partially upheld a decision by the US district court of the Southern district of New York (Christian Louboutin SA v Yves Saint Laurent Am, Inc (‟YSL”), 2011 WL 3505350). In that dispute, Christian Louboutin SAS (which used to be named Christian Louboutin SA) had requested a preliminary injunction to prevent luxury goods competitor YSL from marketing monochromatic outsole/upper red shoes challenged by Mr Louboutin as infringing his red sole trademarks. Using a defence argument similar to that put forth by Zara in the French courts’ legal saga, YSL denied that its challenged shoes’ red outsoles created any risk of consumer confusion at or after the point of sale, and further moved to invalidate the federal registration of the trademark awarded to Mr Louboutin by the US Patent and Trademark Office (‟USPTO”) in 2008, on the grounds that the red sole is merely aesthetically functional and lacks secondary meaning. On 10 August 2011, the US district court of the Southern district of New York denied Louboutin company’s request for an injunction. Southern district judge Victor Marrero wrote ‟Louboutin’s claim to the ‟colour red” is, without some limitation, overly broad and inconsistent with the scheme of trademark registration established by the Lanham act. Awarding one participant in the designer show market a monopoly on the colour red would unduly hinder competition among other participants”. On appeal, the second circuit disagreed and held that judge Marrero’s rule that a single colour can never serve as a trademark in the fashion industry is inconsistent with the supreme court’s decision in Qualitex Co v Jacobson Products Co., 514 US 159, 162 (1995), which held that single colours alone can sometimes serve as valid trademarks. Indeed, single colour trademarks have been protected for years, where the trademark holder can show that consumers associate the colour with their brand or service, as opposed to finding it merely decorative or visually pleasing (e.g. Tiffany’s robin blue box). The second circuit found that the Qualitex decision requires an ‟individualised, fact-based inquiry” into whether consumers associate the single colour with the trademark holder’s brand or service. Further, the second circuit held that the ‟functionality” defence is an affirmative defence that courts must consider only after determining whether the trademark merits protection. Turning to the red sole trademark, the second circuit analysed Louboutin’s advertising expenditures, media coverage and sales success, as well as consumer surveys submitted by both parties, and held that Louboutin’s red soles have acquired limited ‟secondary meaning” as a distinctive symbol that identifies the Louboutin brand only when used as a red outsole ‟contrasting with the remainder of the shoe”. The second circuit ordered the USPTO to modify the red sole trademark to apply to situations only where the red lacquered outsole contrasts with the upper of the shoe. Accordingly, the second circuit upheld judge Marrero’s denial of a preliminary injunction as to the YSL monochrome red shoe because ‟the red sole on YSL’s monochrome shoe is neither a use of, nor confusingly similar to, the red sole mark” (sic).

Smart Christian Louboutin got the lesson and swiftly filed with the French ‟Institut national de la propriété intellectuelle”, and subsequently with WIPO, new trademarks of the red sole, which are three-dimensional and unambiguous and clearly set out the red colour used by Mr Louboutin, by referring to an international colour order system, in this case Pantone.

Since the YSL legal saga, Christian Louboutin has lodged other infringement lawsuits in Japan, China, Switzerland, Poland and India, with mixed results:

  • Christian Louboutin v Eizo Collection company: this case highlights the importance of, and difficulties that come with registering as a trademark a single colour in some countries. Securing a red sole trademark in Japan is difficult because the Japanese Patent Office (‟JPO”) only registers colour trademarks when two or more colours are involved. In 2015, Christian Louboutin attempted to file a trademark on his single-colour mark. This trademark application has been pending ever since because the JPO believes the red sole trademark lacks ‟inherent and acquired distinctiveness”. In 2018, Christian Louboutin learned that the Eizo Collection Company (‟Eizo”) had begun selling shoes with rubber red soles. Christian Louboutin immediately filed an infringement lawsuit in the Tokyo district court. Mr Louboutin argued that Eizo did not ask him for permission to use the red sole mark and, consequently, Eizo was infringing Mr Louboutin’s red sole mark under Japan’s unfair competition law. Christian Louboutin also presented a consumer survey to convince the court that consumers associate red sole shoes with his brand. However, the Tokyo district court decided that the red sole mark of Mr Louboutin does not warrant protection because shoes with red soles ‟have been widely distributed even before the launch of Louboutin shoes in Japan”. Mr Louboutin’s survey did not convince the Tokyo court that the ‟two decades of use and advertisements” categorises Christian Louboutin’s red sole as a distinct ‟source indicator in Japan”. Furthermore, the court said, Eizo’s red bottom shoes cost significantly less and include red rubber soles (while Louboutins have leather soles with a red lacquer coating on them). The Tokyo court did not believe that consumers could confuse Mr Louboutin’s expensive, luxury ‟red lacquered sole” with a lower-priced Eizo rubber red sole. The decision to dismiss Christian Louboutin’s remedies request is consistent with the JPO’s refusal to grant trademarks to single colours. Christian Louboutin’s future infringement success in Japan therefore likely depends on JPO extending protection to single colour marks.
  • Christian Louboutin v Guangdong Wanlima Industrial Company: On 9 September 2022, the Beijing intellectual property court ruled in favour of Christian Louboutin protecting his red sole trademark. When the defendant, Guangdong Wanlima Industrial Company (‟Guangdong”), began selling high heels with a red bottom design like the iconic Louboutin heel, Christian Louboutin responded by filing a lawsuit. This case focused on article 6(1) of China’s anti-unfair competition act which ‟prohibits parties from offering up products that are confusingly similar to those of others”. Article 6(1) states that the infringing design must be similar to a brand with a ‟certain influence”. The Beijing court recognised Christian Louboutin as a highly reputable label with millions of sales and media coverage throughout China. Therefore, the claimant fulfilled the category of brands with a ‟certain influence”. Guangdong’s strikingly similar red bottom design increased the likelihood that consumers could be confused about ‟the course of the shoe and/or their connection to Louboutin”. The case resulted in Guangdong paying Christian Louboutin over USD1 million in damages.

Other Louboutin trademark issues occurred in Switzerland, Poland and India. Poland and India both found trademark infringement, whereas Switzerland rejected Christian Louboutin’s red sole trademark application and, consequently, its trademark enforcement efforts.

4.2. Christian Louboutin v Amazon

Another essential legal input stemming from Christian Louboutin’s legal battles is the direct liability for trademark infringement of online retail platforms and marketplaces such as Amazon.

Is it a trademark infringement to advertise, offer, stock and ship products carrying a sign identical or similar to a registered trademark? Articles 10 of the European Union (‟EU”) directive 2015/2436 of 16 December 2015 to approximate the laws of the member-states relating to trademarks (the ‟Trademark directive”) and 9 of the EU regulation 2017/1001 of 14 June 2017 on the EU trademark (the ‟EUTMR”) provide that these activities are prima facie infringement.

What if we ask the same question in relation to online marketplaces and retail platforms, such as Amazon? Can such a platform be deemed to play an active role and be directly liable for trademark infringement if the product promoted, sold, stocked and shipped through it is a counterfeit item?

This is the key question asked to the Court of justice of the EU (‟CJEU”) via a preliminary question referred to, and raised, in Louboutin C-148/21 dated 22 December 2022.

This referral from Belgium was made in the context of proceedings that the famous red sole trademark owner had initiated against Amazon over third-party listings of counterfeit shoes on Amazon’s platform and their stocking and delivery by Amazon through its ‟Fulfillment by Amazon” programme (‟FBA”).

The referral is important because:

  • firstly, national litigation has given contrasting answers to whether an online marketplace may bear direct liability for trademark infringement in relation to third-party listings;

Another referral to the CJEU (C-184/21 – Louboutin), from Luxembourg’s tribunal d’arrondissement, asking whether the operator of a hybrid marketplace could be considered directly liable for trademark infringement due to the presence of third-party listings of infringing goods on its platform, was joined to the above-mentioned referral C-148/21 made in separate but highly similar proceedings pending between the same parties (Louboutin and Amazon) before the tribunal de l’entreprise francophone de Bruxelles.

In a nutshell, these joined cases were asking the CJEU to determine whether and, if so, at what conditions, the operator of an online marketplace may be found liable under article 9(2) of the EUTMR for the display of advertisements and the delivery of infringing goods that are offered for sale and placed on the market upon the initiative and under the control of independent and third party sellers that use that operator’s services.

Article 9 (2) of the EUTMR is the suite of provisions that entitles EU trademark owners the right to stop third parties from using any sign which is identical or similar to their trademark in relation to goods or services that are identical or similar to those for which the EU trademark is registered.

The answer? Yes. An operator can be found liable under article 9(2) when the normally (reasonably) informed and reasonably observant user of an online marketplace has the impression that the operator of an online marketplace is the one who sells, in its own name and on its own behalf, the goods in question. In particular, this may be the case where an online marketplace displays its own logo on the advertisement of third-party sellers and it carries out the storage and shipping of the third party goods in question.

The criterion is therefore whether an operator of an online marketplace is using the sign in its own commercial communication which, of course, turns on the facts. For example, how is the operator displaying its advertisements (is it displaying its own ads at the same time as those of the third-party sellers)? Is the operator offering additional services to the third-party sellers as part of the marketing of their products (e.g. storing and shipping their products)?

A press release from Christian Louboutin SAS stated that ‟the decision will better protect manufacturers and consumers against the scourge of counterfeiting. Christian Louboutin remains committed to protecting its creativity and know-how, as well as those of all brands in the fight against counterfeiting”. Its general counsel, Xavier Ragot, stated that this was ‟another victory in the fight against the scourge of counterfeiting, which will benefit all companies that strive for excellence and all consumers looking for authentic, and quality products”.

After this decision of 22 December 2022 from the CJEU, it is down to the referring national court to decide whether the user has the necessary impression, on the facts, for there to be a finding of trademark infringement.

However, Amazon got a lesson in humility there, because it was found liable by the CJEU should a normally informed and reasonably attentive user get the impression that it is Amazon that retails, in its own name and on its behalf, the Louboutin products offered for sale by third-party vendors. The particular factors informing that decision were:

  • the fact that Amazon used a uniform method of presenting the offers published on its website, regardless of whether the goods advertised were its own or third party retailers’;
  • the fact that Amazon placed its own logo on all those advertisements, and
  • the fact that Amazon offered third-party sellers additional services consisting of the storing and shipping of their goods.

This Louboutin v Amazon CJEU case law is now often applied by EU national courts, such as, for example, the Hague district court in its judgment of 30 August 2023, which found that Fruugo, an online marketplace, was not directly liable under trademark law, for the advertisement and sale, on its platform, of products which infringed the trademarks of Audi and Volkswagen.

 

Well done, Christian Louboutin, you have now ensured your posterity and legacy in three ways: by founding and developing a thriving luxury business, by having and parenting two kids and by shaping the law of fashion and luxury goods on at least two very important grounds, relating to the validity of colour trademarks and the liability for trademark infringement of online marketplaces, respectively! There may be a third legal saga looming on the horizon, since Christian Louboutin accused Mehdi Mohamed Nasrallah, a former employee, of stealing and selling sample products in a new lawsuit lodged in December 2023 with the US court for the Southern district of New York.

Crefovi live webinar: Christian Louboutin & the law – a shoe designer tale paved with lawful lessons – 8 May 2025

 

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