Le petit quelque chose qui fout tout par terre: Louboutin on design

 From this Lauren Collins interview with legendary shoe designer Christian Louboutin: 

"He believes, anyway, in repelling preciousness with a sense of humor. “Really good taste, you have to forget about it,” he said. “We have a phrase in French, le petit quelque chose qui fout tout par terre, which means ‘the little thing that fucks everything up.’ So, with a very classical shape, you use, like, a really funky fabric or an overshiny thing.”

In 2006, Louboutin took the basic shape of the Very Privé and swaddled it in fuzzy orange mohair—a Snuffleuphagus of a shoe. Hamish Bowles, the European editor-at-large for Vogue, said,

 “There’s the promise of something wicked in Christian’s shoes. They’re a little dangerous, and there’s a sense of teetering on the precipice between avoiding dreary conventional good taste and tumbling into something far more outrageous.”

I'd say these babies have clearly tumbled into outrageous territory, but at least they are not boring (my bête noire)

He is definitely a grand provocateur, and the shoes above were clearly part of a brief 'fashion moment', but I enjoyed this interview, especially for it's inclusion of my favourite French phrase.

In design, it is taking risks that can make the reputation of a house, and makes the established obsolete.  It's possible that Louboutin's more extreme provocative aesthetic has run its course, but I'm sure the future of good design is not about returning to what is simply 'safe' and mass-marketable.

I would hardly describe my work as 'dangerous'(except when I inadvertently whack someone with my knuckleduster), but this concept is related to the somewhat more elegant Japanese one of Wabi-Sabi ; the notion of deliberate imperfection.  When I first came across this concept a decade or so, I found it immensely illuminating. It explained the beauty that lies in the juxtaposition of fine control in craft, and the inevitably flawed human resonance from the hand of the artist. It was an important understanding for me, because in my growth towards perfection, I could have overstepped the mark, and now be producing perfectly uniform but sterile pieces. In this age of computerised mass-production, it is often the subtly flawed touch of the human hand that brings an object to life.

My designs have reached a stage where we consistently achieve perfection for the aspects where it is necessary (the inside curves,the proportions,the gem facets), but we still retain character, so that every piece is subtly different, and shows something of the hand that made it. It's an interesting tension to maintain. We achieve it by being a small, closely knit team, who limit production to a level that doesn't compromise the quality we need to achieve. Retaining the soul of a piece of jewellery is difficult to do with mass-production. I don't even know if it is possible.

Fortunately, in light of the pressure now around the world, it was never a goal of mine to have multiple stores; more than ever, I'm glad to be able to simply focus on what we do, without having to satisfy accountants or shareholders.

I doubt sophisticated people really want to see the same jewellery (or shoes, or bags) on their friends. Here's to Wabi-Sabi, and the interesting "petit quelque chose qui fout tout par terre". Come to think of it, that's a perfect inscription for myself. Better get to the bench...

Read the full Louboutin interview at the New Yorker

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