Alexis Mourot (Maison Christian Louboutin) | Le Grand Entretien | Who's Who

The first thing is perhaps an image that is very, very strong for Christian. He lived in the 12th arrondissement. He was between 10 and 12 years old. He went for the first time to the Palais de la Porte Dorée, the museum of immigration. And he saw an image on the ground floor that was a shoe, a stiletto with a large red cross. Forbidden. Forbidden. Forbidden. He said to himself, what is that? And in fact at the time, there were parquet floors. It was forbidden to walk with stiletto heels on the parquet. So he saw that, did it create a desire to draw? We can also see it differently and say that when he is told no, he wants to do something. In any case, it was certainly a genesis at the start. The second thing, the cabaret. It was from those years at the Palace where he started when he was young, and from there was born this desire for burlesque with lots of entertainment, shows, a collaboration with the Crazy Horse. We also do all the scenography for the Rose Ball. So that's all the cabaret spirit of the house and of Christian. Then he pursued a career in big houses. At what point did it shift to saying finally I will become my own creator? It's a beautiful story. I call it a beautiful story because Christian, after working in several houses at Roger Vivier, had two friends Bruno Chambellan and Henry Sédou. He said 'I would like to set up on my own.' And Bruno and Henry said 'Well, let's go.' So they created the structure with, I think, 30,000 francs at the time. None of them had any experience except Christian. Bruno being an auctioneer and Henry having other activities. A beautiful story, a story of friends.

There is the man and there is the house. You must not mix the two. The whole story begins with the man, but also the house has developed certain things. This uniqueness is a French spirit, a free, creative spirit. We also defined everything that was DNA with the executive committee. This desire to create objects of desire, that is very, very important, which pushes women to feel much more powerful. Above all, it is dedicated to women. It was entirely dedicated to women at the start. A passionate, a passionate about objects, and therefore the creation of magnificent objects, the magnificent object plus with a red sole. You can't miss them, when you walk down the street you recognize them, at least the aficionados of Christian Louboutin. That's what created the start and the breakthrough of Christian Louboutin. Not quite, I would say it's a very important moment. The house was created in '91 and in '92 Christian actually created the red sole. It was first a distinctive sign. It became a brand in its own right. We defended it, we won. Now, yes, it's part of the story, it's a trigger, but what is more important is everything around the creativity of the house and of Christian. Yes, it's part of the house, but we must not reduce it simply to the red sole. There is know-how, of course, the shoe is a particular know-how developed in France. So you don't realize, looking at the work of these shoes, the work behind the most sold model. How long? We manufacture everything in Italy, there is unfortunately no more French manufacturing. The design is French, manufacturing Italian and a little bit from Spain. To answer that question, there are two ways of looking at things. In fact, when we take orders, we deliver 4 to 5 months later. That's the time, the time to place orders for supplies, but also for leather. It's a fairly long process. On a shoe, there are three processes, let's say. A cutting process. We cut the leather, we order, we cut the leather, then we stitch the leather, and then we assemble the shoe. If we look at the time spent on a pair, we can say it's about 3 hours of work, but 3 hours of work over 2, 3, or 4 months. We know it's a balance between sexy and elegance that is not easy. And you manage to stay between these two appreciations. That's what I admire about Christian, his ability to combine the two, to combine sexy and elegance without falling into vulgarity. And that's a capacity that few designers have. And it's a kind of magic that we try to keep. But what also makes it is that each time we tell a story in the shoe. And the story is a story that every woman or every man can look at. An arch, a line, a color, small additions that make the shoe quite exceptional.

We had to diversify no matter what. It was not at all an objective. It has to come quite naturally, that is, we don't plan much in advance. I take the example of men's. It started with Mika, a friend of Christian, who said, 'I need shoes, I need sneakers for my tours.' We didn't make men's shoes. So we started like that. On sneakers, it's been more than ten, now about fifteen years. Secondly, you mentioned the nail polish. We said to ourselves, why not beauty? And most brands, when they launch beauty, they launch perfume. And Christian said no, I want to give back to beauty what beauty gave me. So what the nail polish gave me, the story of the red sole. So we started to say, the Louboutin way, let's launch into beauty with the nail polish and with a very, very expensive object. And so we went to see several beauty partners who told us it's not possible. So what did we do? We did it ourselves. Not only is it nail polish, but when you look at it, the nail polish is an inverted stiletto heel.

We are in a little more than forty countries. We don't really count the stores, 160, it depends. In fact, we have opened about fifteen per year. We don't have an opening objective. We open 15 but we rather have requests. There are waiting times of one to two years because it is planned in advance. We are more about wanting a beautiful map, not being too represented, but now we are for example in Australia, we have a store. The 32 subsidiaries we have are mostly wholly owned. That's important. We have time, so we do it the Louboutin way to preserve the DNA, right? Being very careful. Yes, and we like to control it, so with few franchises. I arrived 18 years ago, we had very little retail, only two or three stores, we moved a lot of things. And the store concepts also change a lot. That's interesting. Another different thing is that we don't have a single concept. We have three or four concepts that we adapt each time in each country so that each country or each store is a bit different. And the product too, it's both things, often I see customers in a store who tell me, 'I love it but I don't understand, I live between New York, London and Geneva and you don't have the same models in each store.' I say, 'Well yes, it's done on purpose because we make sure each store has its own identity.'

We are in very close relationship with all our teams. So that's important. For example, China, we are late on China. We were very late. It's a country we opened after others. We follow that. We say, fortunately China represents only 5% of our revenue. So it's not very high. On the other hand, we continue little by little to gain market share. We pay a bit more attention to store openings. More specifically now the United States. Yes, with the customs duties. I like to say, it is urgent not to panic. We do simulations, we look, we look at what is happening. It is still more than 45% of our revenue. So it's a market where we have more than 150 points of sale. Very important for us. We are very well positioned. That means we cannot increase a product by 20 or 30%. That would become very complicated. No. So that's something we love to talk about. For years, we had the policy of increasing our prices based on the cost of purchase. Okay. With the same markup. Because other competitors, I won't name them, did differently. There were increases that were quite spectacular. Exactly. Much more spectacular than us. We paid attention to that. Especially on the same product. When there is no added value, when it's the same product that increases like that, it's complicated for the consumer to think it's normal. So we did that, we were between 10 and 12% for a few years, especially in the United States. And now, well, we are asking ourselves what we are going to do. There will certainly be price increases, but that is linked to the economic, geopolitical context of customs duties. So now, we can explain it.

It's true that the creation of the house, as I said earlier in '91, three people. Henri left in 2016, so there were only two people, Bruno and Christian. We like the number 3. So three shareholders was important. For example, what I also call in brand equity, the magic triangle where we have the shareholders, management, and the designer, where the three must be on the same wavelength, otherwise it's complicated. And in 2021, we thought and said it would be good to bring in another shareholder, not for liquidity reasons, just for governance reasons. And then we had four possibilities, four choices. First choice, to say 'Let's go public.' We were not at all organized for that. It wasn't the objective. The second choice was to work with an industrial, a large luxury group. But it's complicated to want to sell 24%, so it was difficult. Generally, they want much more. And we didn't have full freedom. The third thing was perhaps to go see a private equity group. But the problem when you go see them is that you discuss the marriage but also the divorce in 3 or 4 years. That is, it starts badly. So I can understand, but the horizon is short term. That's what I say. And so the third possibility for us, to find a reference shareholder for the long term, was to find a family office for the long term, exactly for the long term, and that was very important. And there were only a handful, we went to see a few and it turned out we found the family, the Exor fund, the Agnelli family, John Elkann, and Suzanne Heywood who presides over the fashion part. We did business with them, they took 24% of the house. Did we have to change things in the company? Not at all. And that was very important and we really liked that. The house was quite organized. The thing they organized was the management of a board. When we were asked, 'What is your board composed of?' And we said, 'Well, just the three of us discuss around a table, obviously with all the teams afterwards, but we didn't have that governance.' And since we had a size that was starting to be a bit significant, they told us, 'Wait, with the size you have, you still need to have a board.' And so that's what changed. They told us they would become what they called a critical friend. We are here to help you when things go wrong, but when things go well, we will challenge you. It's not to criticize, but to challenge. When things go wrong, they are there, and we have a reference shareholder that since then allows us not to be bothered or solicited by other groups that would want to buy us, because it is our protector.

We are also into shows. So Christian, we come back. Spectacular on several levels. First, because very surprising, so many people said wow, very young, very joyful. You are completely in Christian's DNA. Secondly, we launched during this show a new shoe called the MZ, which is a very different pump with comfort on which we worked a lot. Yes, we can talk about comfort and we are changing a lot of things on comfort. The third thing is that we launched this shoe with a new red sole. We call it the Everlasting. Okay. Indelible, let's say, you walk and it doesn't wear off, so to speak. And that was completely innovative. We worked on it, the teams worked on it for 2 years. It was great because the design, the merchandising, and the production team all worked hand in hand on it. So there, and we will gradually roll that out on most of our shoes. But the show was also a great nod because it was just after the Olympic Games. We asked the French synchronized swimming team to do the show, and it was spectacular.