Jaden Smith Is Louboutin’s New Creative Director. Even He’s Surprised (EXCLUSIVE)
Do you remember the first proper shoes you wore? Probably not. They were likely a stiff rental from a formal outfitter or near-destroyed hand-me-down from a relative. Jaden Smith is like you, in that he only vaguely remembers the first fine footwear he ever donned for some bygone suit-and-tie thing. The difference is that he clearly recalls that they were Louboutins.
Smith has been wearing Louboutin shoes at least “since I was 7,” he says, and claims that even as a child he found their elegance obvious and intoxicating. “Louboutin has been part of my life for a long time.”
Smith is the new creative director of Christian Louboutin’s men’s line. And, because Christian Louboutin himself has overseen both women’s and men’s offerings since the brand was born in 1991, that makes Smith the first person besides Louboutin himself to be the house’s public-facing creative director. It’s not only a big deal, it’s a left-field big deal. Even Smith was a bit stupefied at first. “When I got the call, it really changed me. I was extremely honored,” he says. “It’s one of the greatest opportunities that I’ve ever had in my life.”
Not that he’s letting on much. Or anything. I’m speaking to Smith via video call; his camera is on but pointed toward the ceiling. I spend our chat staring at the top of his hat. This is not typically how these kinds of fashion-world conversations go, but Smith is not a typical kind of designer. The 27-year-old has acted, rapped, and sold bottled water. His only prior footwear-designing experience is creating collaborative sneakers with New Balance. And though he's discussing his appointment to one of the world’s most famous shoemakers with the nonchalance that any other 27-year-old might use to discuss a summer job, Smith is being entrusted to infuse his very distinct personality into a company currently valued at a little over $3 billion.
“I remember showing up [to meet Louboutin] in a really wild outfit so that I wouldn’t, like, Trojan horse my way into the conversation and make him think that I wasn’t gonna be myself. He didn’t even say anything about it, which was a real shocker to me,” says Smith, who got word that Louboutin wanted to talk about the job while sitting in the Shake Shack at Harvard Square. “We just had an awesome conversation.”
Louboutin did notice Smith’s outfit, for what it’s worth. “I was definitely surprised about his kindness and curiosity, his style obviously,” the designer says over email. “We met a few times in Paris during fashion events and had these really amazing discussions. It is funny because these were fashion moments, but we were speaking about everything but fashion.”
Similarly, Smith and I bounce around just about every subject but fashion. Smith is keeping mum about his Louboutin designs, save for one tall red-bottomed boot seen in the imagery above, until his avant-premiere collection releases at Louboutin stores in January. Simultaneously, Smith will present his first seasonal Louboutin menswear line at Paris Fashion Week. So, instead , we discuss Smith’s artistic influences (“Salvador Dalí, Yves Klein, and Marcel Duchamp”); Smith’s advice for aspiring creatives (“Prime your environment, build your systems, and audit the five people that you hang out with”); and the perfect pant-shoe interaction (“When the slacks are infinitesimally close to the shoe — they actually aren’t touching the shoe, but it looks like they are”).
“We have the same enthusiasm and curiosity when we have creative discussions. There is always this kind of ping-pong between us,” Louboutin says. “It’s really our common language. The inspiration can come from everywhere.”
You really do get the sense that you’re talking to the guy who recently hit the red carpet with a castle on his head. One moment, Smith is talking about infusing Louboutin's classy footwear with outdoor utility. Then, in a brief flash of the Smith who was once the poet laureate of Twitter, he’ll flash that out by saying: “Natural things that are real and touchable are important, like non-digital physical trees and mountains.”
As far-ranging as Smith’s personal vision may be, his take on Louboutin men’s will be grounded in wearability. Smith’s perspective on wearability, at least. He says that he envisions each new piece of footwear partnered to a specific trouser. “Whenever I design different shoes, I’m like, ‘This is for pants, this is for shorts, this is for swim trunks.’” Shoes for swim trunks? “Yes,” says Smith.
But maybe Smith simply gets Louboutin more than most. “I swim in the mornings every day. For me, it’s like meditation; I think very freely while I swim,” Louboutin says. “Suddenly, [while swimming] it came to me: ‘What about Jaden?’ It wasn’t a formal process with a shortlist or interview. Jaden made me think of the role, not the other way around.”
This kind of kinetic, of-the-moment thinking is the crucial link between Louboutin and Smith. People tend to age out of it, but Smith, like Louboutin, has only honed his open-mindedness with age. The French designer founded his eponymous house when he was 28, just a year older than Smith is now. Although it’s now an establishment, Louboutin’s brand was initially an upstart trading blows with century-old maisons, upsetting hoity-toity norms with spikes and designer sneakers. The pointy Louis sneaker, released in 2009, combined the two elements into one of Louboutin’s first major crossover designs. But although the men’s line is popular, it only represents 24% of the Louboutin business, according to CEO Alexis Mourot. “We believe there is still tremendous potential,” he said in a statement.
Smith is a little excited, a little on edge, more than a little at ease at facing that potential head-on. He knows he’s onto something. “There’s a point where it feels like, ‘Alright, we need to lock [the shoe] in a box now because someone’s going to steal it away,’” he says. “Once you’re like, ‘It’s getting scary now. I just wanna leave, come back, and see if it’s still scary,’ that’s when you know you have something special.”
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