The Louboutin Lawsuit: Heart and Sole

Tho' it happened back in August, I am still thinking about Louboutin's red sole lawsuit. We all know what happened: Christian Louboutin sued YSL for copycatting his famous red sole and lost because the judge felt that Louboutin had no right to have a monopoly over one color, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah, despite the fact that Louboutin registered the sole as a trademark years ago. Louboutin rightly continues to fight this fight, and I am completely on his side in this matter. Why? Because it's not really about soles. It's about soul.

If people truly understood the mind -- and heart -- of an artist (a true artist, one who is such to the core), they would realize that this issue is not petty, nor is Louboutin being unreasonable. This isn't a matter of monopolizing a color, it is the unique placement of this color that makes it his intellectual property; he first thought of/exectuted it, so it was, simply, his idea, the brainchild born of his own peculiar creativity. The man built a reputation, a look, a style, and indeed, an empire, out of red soles -- quite literally. He had the sole trademarked because it was his trademark; everyone knew a Louboutin by the famous red sole, and everyone wanted one because of it.

For an artist to see his unique vision knocked off -- yes, I said it, knocked off -- by a competitor, is not only aggravating because of the obvious commercial issue involved; it is aggravating because Louboutin's red sole represents his persona, his vision, his soul, as it were, as an artist. An artist's art, whatever the medium, is an extension of his being and personality, what he stands for, his aesthetic, and his world view. To imitate that is disrespectful and often, unnerving. To adapt someone else's creation for one's own use, benefit, edification, or what have you, is indelicate and tantamout to identity theft. As someone who despises self-profiting copycatting, I would go so far as to argue that such blatant imitation is, artistically speaking, dangerously close to soul stealing. It is unjust, it is ugly, it is twisted, it is hurtful, and it can be frightening.

Because of this, I applaud Louboutin for continuing to fight and defend his work, and I applaud Tiffany & Co. for standing by his side. Obviously, I believe Louboutin should win the case, and not really because he did, legally, copyright the red sole in 2008 (which should, in theory, make this a non-issue). I believe he should win because it's in poor taste to imitate another artist's calling card. As we are emotional, creative human beings, and not unfeeling robots or functional cogs in a machine, the only humane thing to do would be to recognize Louboutin's right to practice his art in his own unique way and award him the suit.

Indeed, art is born of emotion and sentiment. To reduce an artist's claim to a nuts-and-bolts understanding of commerce and the color wheel is not objective and just; it is nearsighted and inhumane. Without quirks, details, and uniqueness, there is no art. If one were to deny Louboutin his right to reestablish the red sole as his alone, one might as well do away with art altogether. Without unique thinkers like Louboutin, art cannot thrive, so the implications of this case reach further than one might think, at the outset. A win for Louboutin would mean a win for art and artists, and as art is both the expression of a society's soul, and the means by which it is nurtured, such a triumph would actually resonate across all human lives, whether they realized it, or not.

- Lisette