[ Engine revs ] ♪♪ [ Louboutin speaking French ] Interpreter: I wanted to design shoes.

And somehow I wanted women to like them and to wear them.

[ Woman speaking indistinctly over PA ] ♪♪ That was my one and only clear ambition.

That was my sole ambition.

I had no ideas of building a brand, building a name, and all that entailed, licensing and so on.

Basically, I honestly genuinely didn't have the slightest idea of what the fashion business was.

♪♪ Woman: I hope you enjoyed the flight.

We look forward to seeing you on board again.

♪♪ Interpreter: I often get asked, when did things take off?

♪♪ I don't really know.

I can't say such and such an event acted as a spur and suddenly things kicked off.

♪♪ The first "pinch me, I'm dreaming" moment was when someone recognized my name.

I was at the airport.

There was a lady, a security officer, who was handing back possessions.

She began shrieking, "Oh, my God, Louboutin!

Ooh la la!"

This is fun, I thought.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Laughs ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Applause ] Things seem well underway.

We had more customers, people who liked them, who loved them, and I liked that.

And things were very nice.

I was meeting very funny people.

I was learning several trades at once.

I loved my drawing and designing and seeing things come together.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Louboutin humming ] ♪♪ ♪♪ I like to draw in places I know well.

If I don't know the place, I'm too curious to sit at a table.

This is a totally familiar place.

We're in Portugal.

I mainly do the autumn-winter collections here.

♪♪ [ Laughter ] There's a ramp up.

I don't just bang out designs from day one, but I do draw.

If I'm not producing wonders in the first couple of days, I don't worry.

It's always the same.

There's always a nervy start about the quality of the first things, but I concentrate on the drawing.

The first day and the second day I need to adjust the lines.

But that's a pleasure anyway.

And that's a perfect start.

It's like a warm-up.

♪♪ I begin to draw and there has to be a flow.

The characteristic of a collection is to draw abundantly.

What inspires me the most?

I'm inspired by objects.

I'm inspired by music and people in general.

These are people I know, totally imaginary people or people I've met or someone I've seen in a show.

So it can come from people.

♪♪ Plants also spring to mind naturally.

Here, for instance, is a santolina.

It's a particular yellow with a green.

When it's next to another plant, a plant in the sand which is a soft purple, it's very pretty.

It's a combination of colors and also of materials that really comes from plants.

♪♪ ♪♪ I feel kind of like Obelix in "Asterix."

Whenever he sees anything, he imagines it roasted like a roast boar.

I'm a bit like that.

I'll see something and make a design from it.

For example, this rug.

It's a kind of woven leather.

I see a sandal and work on that.

So the starting point is an object that's familiar to me, something I like anyway.

♪♪ But from time to time, I let my pencil guide me.

That comes from a love for drawing.

♪♪ [ Waves crashing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ The red sole didn't come from an idea.

It came from a design.

I had the shoe, I had the design and kept thinking, the shoe is good, but the design is better.

I turned it every which way, and when I had it like that, the sole was black.

And I had no black in my design.

There was no beige, no gray, only bright colors.

And the person trying on the shoes, Sara, she was painting her nails.

So I said, "Would you mind if I took your varnish?"

She said, "Wait, I'll finish my nails."

I said, "No, there's something I want to check."

So after a struggle, I managed to get the bottle of varnish.

She had only done two nails.

She wasn't happy.

"I've only done two!"

I emptied the bottle of varnish on the sole.

I looked at my design and thought, that's it.

A lot of women at the time only wore black.

"I don't like color," they said.

I said to one, "You say you don't like color, but you do have some."

She says, "No, I have no colors."

I say, "What about this?"

She says, "That's red."

The woman says, "No, red's different.

It's not really a color.

It's more than a color."

I thought, yes, I can see that.

That was when I realized that even if you didn't like colors, red existed.

♪♪ ♪♪ Hello.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Here I talk to the technicians about what should remain of the design.

You must first respect the design, and then the technique will come in support of that.

If something's stuck on the foot here, it won't be glued.

They'll be transparent straps or something that isn't seen.

But at the design stage, I prefer to be completely free.

And that's important because, if there's too much technique, you get locked into technique.

The design shrinks in terms of the imagination bestowed on it because you rule certain things out.

Loads of things aren't possible, but that's not what matters.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Interpreter #2: We started working on a particular shape.

I'd never seen anything like them.

My father, who was already 60 then, said, "These lines are impossible."

You can't wear these on your feet."

But I said, "Look, we'll follow what Christian draws and see what we get.

And that was a big hit.

The fact of having lines rising where the toes begin gives the shoe a super sexy aspect.

♪♪ Interpreter #1: Some people in creative jobs are inspired by technique.

For example, I remember the technician at Jourdan.

It was an adorable bearded gentleman in a white coat.

He came up to me and put his shoe on my desk just like that.

And he said, "See that?

It's great.

In this heel, there's one nail.

I said, "So what?"

He had a southern accent, which I can't do.

"You know nothing.

A nail in a heel is technically very complicated.

It's held with a single nail."

I said, "Yes, but it's ugly."

When a woman looks at a shoe, I want it to spark an emotion or a desire, not for her to say, "Now, that's a technical challenge."

She doesn't see that.

That's why I've been pilloried for the word "comfort," because that notion doesn't enter my head when I design.

Ah, the French designer who doesn't like women, who wants to torture them.

It's nothing to do with torture.

But if your basic purpose is comfort, I always say place the word comfort uppermost in your mind and see what you design.

You'll make slippers and shawls.

It's just the heel.

Otherwise it's good.

Yes.

They look like scales.

It's lovely.

The idea is, is to realize that, until the end, they are pyramids.

Inverted pyramids, in fact.

Not in that way.

In this way.

It might be pretty to have the tip here.

Leaving it high will make a rather thick ornament like a jewel.

And have a ball here.

Here, put this one on.

♪♪ I have thoughts that match various personalities.

I have the eye of a creator, the eye of a man who thinks of his wife, his mistress, or his fiancée.

Watch.

I take off the heels.

One.

Two.

Three.

Turn.

Then I have the girl's friend relationship.

And the almost a girl relationship.

I can have a totally different analysis of the same design.

So, in my work, there are various types of characters who intermingle.

Who, from time to time, we'll collide, yell at each other, and not agree.

So, throughout the collection, there's a part of all these fragments of my own personality, but which I let speak inside of me.

That's important.

♪♪ ♪♪ A woman's shoe only touches the foot but radiates throughout the whole body.

The whole figure, right up to the head, the way you are.

The shoe is a very transformative object.

The woman wears her clothes, whereas shoes wear the woman.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Indistinct conversation in French ] Punakha Hills.

That's pretty river-like.

Let me look.

This one's flowers.

Himalayan flowers.

Flowers.

This one's Bhutan beauty.

Bhutan beauty.

Oh, damn.

This was Himalayan flowers.

There are all the flowers.

Okay.

Fairy garden.

So, now, are we agreed on heaven and earth?

That's Himalayan garden.

Flowers.

Those are all the names.

We have them all.

♪ Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah ♪ Okay, I'll carry on.

♪♪ I come here for one week a month.

When you stay for a week, it allows you to start things, amend things and review them two or three days later rather than waiting for the next time.

So you make several adjustments so it's instantaneous.

It's important to me to sleep in the factory because, maybe around 9:00 or 10:00 in the evening, I remember things and go back down, but the factory is locked up with alarms, et cetera.

So I don't actually enter.

But I need to be connected to the offices where the pencils are at all times.

♪♪ When what you do at work works well, it just means you can do it better.

Anything that springs from my imagination.

A design that may be more complicated or technically difficult or very expensive to manufacture.

All that I can allow myself to do.

It always leads to something.

It means that we've sidelined this thing.

Whenever I do something that I dismiss for lots of reasons, visual reasons, or that it doesn't work, et cetera, it isn't a waste of money or time.

In fact, Success has given me the chance to experiment a lot and to do even more.

[ Woman speaking indistinctly over PA ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Interpreter #3: I've known Christian for 20 years.

When I met him in 2000, he already had a name, a certain fame, but not many boutiques.

At the time, the name Christian Louboutin didn't have the planetary reach and incredible influence that he can have today.

Nevertheless, Christian's way of life is strictly the same.

It hasn't changed, and that commands admiration because it means there's something within him that is stronger than success, than a desire to succeed.

Then the spiral of enrichment.

It's staying true to yourself.

He could very well have turned his life into the hell of a big industrial boss.

Like many successful people who can't stop along the way and who buy up companies, they want to build an empire, be number one, et cetera.

Christian doesn't.

♪♪ ♪♪ Where are they?

Interpreter #4: Delphine's smoking out front.

The rest I don't know.

♪♪ Interpreter: These really need to be tried out.

I'd be scared that, uh... They're pretty.

They're very pretty, though.

You'd have to make a pair in 43 and try them, walk in them.

♪♪ Beyond designing shoes, now it's a company, so there are lots of things, events, photography, stores, sets, architecture.

There are meetings, collaborations, lots of things going on.

I like to see everything, to look after everything because it interests me.

I really do look for fun in everything I do.

And to improve everything.

♪♪ We'll put Oscar and Marie at 1:00.

Interpreter #2: You're with us at 1 p.m.

Interpreter: Oh, yes.

So we'll put Oscar and Marie at 12:30.

Yeah.

It won't take long.

What time did Lavinia say?

12?

Interpreter #4: Simon, can you see Christian now?

-Interpreter #2: I'm not ready.

-Interpreter: Oh.

When will you be ready, -Simon?

Interpreter #2: Give me 20 minutes.

I'll prepare all the documents and come down.

Interpreter: In 20 minutes?

What time is it now?

Interpreter #4: 11:30.

Interpreter: At 12, then.

Thank you.

So, Simon at 12.

That's good.

What else is happening?

1:00?

And how long will Simon take?

Interpreter #4: Half an hour.

Interpreter #2: You can only do it in velvet or satin.

Interpreter: In satin.

We'll do it in satin.

Satin or what we saw below.

All the tests were beautiful.

Interpreter #2: Yes, they were beautiful.

And we should test some more.

Interpreter: Yes, but it doesn't take.

I don't think it will take the light.

Interpreter #4: It doesn't reflect light.

Interpreter #2: Don't be so sure.

♪♪ Interpreter: I'm not a control freak.

We hear a lot about things needing to be perfect.

I want this to be perfect.

I don't seek perfection.

What I want is for things to be good, to be beautiful, to be interesting.

I can't understand why we have to be perfect.

♪♪ Oh!

Hello.

[ Laughter ] Woman: Hello.

Interpreter #2: This summer showcase water skiing.

All the water skiing products.

Some on lifesavers.

Super fun.

Interpreter: That's very good.

The only thing is the waves should be more cut up.

It's a bit regular.

Boom boom boom.

It needs to turn.

Straight things aren't pretty.

Especially since everything has a round base.

Suddenly boom with something straight with lines.

That's the first thing I see.

Okay.

And the outline?

Interpreter #4: That's better.

More magical.

Interpreter #2: It has more dynamism.

Interpreter: It looks a bit like a cloud now.

But... Here we need a ball.

There.

Yes.

Okay.

Interpreter #2: Little red ball.

Interpreter: Is there any wind in these shops?

Because it would be nice to have a Zebedee like that.

A little spring.

You know.

Interpreter #4: That's a very good idea.

[ Traffic rumbling ] ♪♪ Interpreter: I work in the great domain of the useless.

But the great domain of the useless is wonderful.

I have a clear memory of a woman coming into the boutique.

It was in the early years in Paris.

I was working in the boutique as a salesperson, too.

And I remember this woman who sees a prim-ine, a high-heeled sandal model with a club heel.

Like that in pale pink crepe, with a rosette of feathers at the front of the foot, and a feather behind on the heel.

Powdery pink.

The thing that if you have dirty fingers, it's ruined.

It marks in crepe.

And she looks at things and after a while comes over and says, "Oh, I love that.

It's so useless.

I really need it."

Obviously, she'd never seen a shoe like that, so here it is.

We absolutely need things to make us dream.

Even totally useless things can protect us.

♪♪ ♪♪ Interpreter #5: Shoes are stories of what you dream of being.

Of what you really are that day.

Of what you think you like but don't like in the least.

It's an accessory choice that can be rather decisive.

I feel that Louboutin shoes are the key to passing from one universe to another.

It's as if suddenly there's such a concentration of time, of precision, of reflection, of possibilities gathered at the end of your foot.

It's as if we ended up with a package of signifiers like that.

♪♪ Interpreter #6: What I find striking in his work is the clear feeling of continuity.

Even before the red sole, you felt from the beginning that the codes were there.

Because he embodies those codes.

♪♪ Interpreter: I think that a whole part of my creator's apprenticeship includes what I experienced and accumulated early on.

Le Palace is part of that.

♪♪ ♪♪ Interpreter #7: Exciting because in the end, he's a kid from the block of the late '70s, early '80s who becomes a leading global figure in the world of creation.

I think that from the kid who used to sneak into Le Palace, to someone who today is at the head of a global business, I think it's quite interesting.

In a way, it sends out a message of hope.

Interpreter: Le Palace was really a statement of freedom.

Already everyone was mixing and with very little we could have a big effect.

We'd be making our own clothes, et cetera, having fun.

Parading.

It was a big parade.

Some serious work went into not being serious.

And that has disappeared.

♪♪ ♪♪ When you have a company, after a while, the years add up.

We were approaching 25 and I. Thought.

Would be good as an exhibition that isn't a retrospective, but on what happened during these 25 years.

And that's what motivated me and made me want to hear what lots of people I work with have to say.

And also to spotlight all the collaborations and the crafts industry.

Interpreter #5: I can understand the regulators saying, hang on, Christian Louboutin, the Palais de la Porte Dorée, the immigration museum.

What's that got to do with anything?

Interpreter: So far, we've kept the project secret.

We haven't mentioned the project at all.

So the few people who expressed any desire are internal people, but we haven't talked about it.

[ Applause ] Interpreter #2: On the one hand, we keep the expressionist side.

And here we come with the Exhibition(iste) double take.

The typography is something we can push.

Interpreter: You're sure it has two N's?

Interpreter #2: Yes, there are two Ns.

-Interpreter: It's ugly with two Ns.

Interpreter #2: We can do it with one.

We don't care.

Interpreter: Yes.

It is ugly, isn't it?

It's ugly with two Ns.

Are you sure it's two Ns?

Interpreter #2: Yes.

Interpreter: You know, let's do it with one N. Interpreter #2: In English it's one N. Interpreter: That doesn't work very well.

No, we simply write, "We decided on one N."

[ Laughter ] We take responsibility for the spelling.

Honestly.

It's prettier.

Interpreter #2: That's true.

It's always like this at the beginning.

Interpreter: Or we do one N like that.

Interpreter #2: Which is doubled, hanging on.

Interpreter: With one end like that.

And here's the double N. If you don't get that, then you're stupid.

Yeah, okay.

Like that.

Interpreter: An exhibition in itself is great, but it has to be done right.

I think he's someone... We see it in his sources of inspiration, the way he's built his career, as well as his friendships and family.

He's someone who doesn't do things opportunistically.

We could have offered him other places in Paris.

I think he's only interested in the Porte Dorée because he grew up so near to this amazing palace.

♪♪ Interpreter: The first shoe design I saw when I was small was in this museum.

It was part of the signage.

High heels forbidden.

It was crossed out in red.

Heels were banned because this part was metal in the 1950s and when the heel was thin, this metal part would destroy.

Oh, I just hurt my palm.

It destroyed wood and mosaics so they were banned.

I thought a lot about the drawing on this sign because I'd go to this place very often.

It was right by my home.

My parents would send me to the museum because it was free to children living in the 12th arrondissement.

[ Train whistle blows ] When you don't know what you want to do, grown ups are always saying, what do you want to do when you grow up?

And if you don't know, it can be a problem.

So that was my loophole.

I'd say that I was going to design shoes so everyone left me alone.

I didn't really think that it was a job.

Really, I didn't.

Until I was given a book by someone I admired greatly afterwards.

Roger Vivier.

Monsieur Roger Vivier.

♪♪ It had just his name on it, and there were lots of photos of his shoes.

When I saw that, I thought how wonderful.

It is a real job.

And what's more, you can do extraordinary things.

♪♪ Almost at random, I had picked a job for myself, which was actually a very nice job.

[ Birdsong ] In 1988, I was 24.

Roger Vivier asked me to be his personal assistant for the exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.

I accepted immediately, of course.

It was Museological work.

I'd pick up the prototypes, write all the index cards, et cetera.

Not at all a design job.

And quite honestly, I didn't want that.

When you're with your absolute master, you're happy to watch him act.

You absorb it.

But I didn't want to interfere in his story, which was already written.

He was 80 at the time.

So after working for Roger, I thought, I don't want to work for anyone else.

I'd reached a kind of holy grail.

I said to myself, for a long time I've been living out a childhood dream.

Which was really satisfying.

But now it's time to move on.

I moved on because I didn't want to work for other people, and I didn't really think about setting up my own company.

So in 1989, I stopped designing shoes and did landscaping.

I began creating gardens, terraces, parks, et cetera.

But I missed designing shoes.

It was definitely something different and I missed it.

Quite by chance, I happened to be in the Passage Véro-Dodat, trying to buy a lamp.

Eric Philippe had his gallery, and still does, in the Passage Véro-Dodat.

I was trying to buy a lamp from him and we talked and talked and he said to me, "How are your shoes going?"

I said, "I stopped the shoes, now I'm a landscaper."

"Don't you miss it?"

"Yes, in fact I do."

♪♪ And Philippe said, "There's a place coming free at the end of the passage.

The photo gallery.

Why don't you take it?"

I talked it over with my two oldest friends, Henri and Bruno, and Bruno said, "Let's do it.

Let's set up a company, have a boutique.

You have thousands of designs.

You make them.

And we'll start with one store."

♪♪ ♪♪ For around two years, I imagine, we really struggled along, hand to mouth.

But that wasn't really important to me.

I was so happy to see each design come to life.

Each thing that I had in my head could exist.

It was better if we sold them.

But if we didn't, I'd think, "Okay, well, people don't like it."

Maybe I'm the only one who likes that model, et cetera.

But I wasn't overly traumatized.

But after two years, Bruno told me, "We've just passed something called break even.

It means we're not losing money.

We're making money."

And it was the first time.

I said.

"Oh, we were losing money?"

He said, "We were losing lots of money."

"You could have told me."

"Definitely not."

And I said, "Thank you."

It was better not to tell me.

It might have been a distraction.

♪♪ I don't believe I'd be able to do what I do but for Bruno.

He's always given me enormous freedom.

But if things are heading in the wrong direction or not making sense to him, he's always there to tell me.

We're like a couple at work.

I think it's very important for balance.

♪♪ At the same time, I was able to consider it because my mother had just died.

She died late 1990.

And I started this venture a year later.

I think it's also very linked to the fact that I'd become an adult.

Thanks to everything I'd been given, maybe I could do something.

I had to.

♪♪ I am hugely enthusiastic.

Enthusiasm is a kind of talisman.

You must keep it alive.

To break someone's enthusiasm is a dangerous thing.

Very dangerous, and in my case, I get very enthusiastic very easily.

Without enthusiasm, I'm like a limp rag, I don't function, it's like I'm flatlining.

[ Insects trilling ] [ Footsteps echoing ] [ Clock chimes ] The only time I get scared is when I see all these people who depend on me and who are looking at me -- The name, the designer, the creator, and everyone works for me, et cetera.

That does freak me out because I think, what if I have a car accident or the ceiling falls on my head or I cut my hand?

What happens to all these people?

♪♪ So if things go well, if they multiply and grow, if things reach countries where I've never set foot, all that is a nice adventure with lots of episodes.

It's an unexpected journey.

Things I hadn't considered or imagined, et cetera.

So it's all good.

♪♪ I have a friend I like very much called Dita Von Teese, who is a burlesque artiste who dances, strips, and does all these shows.

♪♪ ♪♪ I love when I see the audience and they're looking just at the shoes and nothing else.

They're just completely mesmerized by the shoes.

It's really exciting for me.

♪♪ You know, I was thinking what we could try to do instead of a zip is an invisible strap.

You know, have you ever seen like, sometimes you can do it with a dress where there's like a like a closure like this and a stay that goes through and you just pull it out, whoosh.

Do you know?

Ah!

♪♪ Dita: It makes me feel good.

It's something I've always loved.

And not just because it's something like it's not a luxury symbol for me.

It's that red on the sole is a little bit like the red lipstick I'm obsessed with, you know, one of my first pairs of shoes that I bought that was very nice, was one of the first pairs of Louboutin shoes.

♪♪ Interpreter: Dita Von Teese at her wedding, her father comes and says to me, "We really did live in an American village where there was nothing, not even a cinema.

So how does my daughter, age ten, ask me for a book on wigs and Marie Antoinette?"

"At 11, a book on Chinese porcelain.

Where does that come from?"

I said, "It's something inside of you.

Like an old soul.

And things just light up."

♪♪ We were discussing with Dita having a metal rod, and when it slides out, it's in a sheath.

It frees everything up.

Dita: I don't think they necessarily have a magical power, but they can make you feel like you have a magical power.

I get a lot of what I want with the shoes.

♪♪ ♪♪ Interpreter: I think we're missing a redhead skin whose skin is really white with blue veins.

White, white, white, white.

When I showed the nudes to the fashion press the first time, people looked and said, "Yes, that's interesting.

But there's no brown in the collections."

That's what half the people said.

We were just wondering if we don't need a pinker color than this one.

For someone who is pink, isn't it?

Is that the pink Lawrence?

Oh!

Interpreter: It comes from something quite simple.

The nudes.

A long time ago, I was showing my collection to American buyers in Paris.

And I'd show some shoes and I'd say, voila!

We have these in black and we have these in nude.

Nude was beige, flesh color, which disappeared and lengthened the leg.

It was made to go with color.

And one girl who worked for me, a Black girl, who came and she was sighing like this.

[ Sighs ] At the end I grabbed her and said, "Are you mad?

I'm with buyers and you arrive sighing.

It's bad manners."

And she said in English, "Yes, but some things annoy me."

"Such as?"

I say.

She says, "You show off a shoe and you say nude.

Sorry, but that's not the color of my skin."

I look and say, "That's right.

Absolutely.

I'm so sorry, but I never thought.

You have a point."

I thought about that a lot.

From then on, I said, now when we do the nudes, we won't be doing one nude.

We'll do them from light to dark, from dark to light, a whole variety of nudes.

And then a newspaper, not a fashion mag, a British daily newspaper covered it more as a sociological issue.

Others joined in with the result that it was immediately seen as a sociological snapshot, not fashion news.

Thank you.

I did rather jump on you.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Interpreter #2: What's important in an exhibition is to show things that are different from the beautiful Christian Louboutin window displays from around the world, or commerce and translate that into the world of museum display cases by trying to preserve the magic, but also by trying to relate scientific, artistic, cultural and technical content to the world of creation and to show in this type of exhibition that today fashion has indeed become a subject of study by museums, and that a Christian Louboutin shoe plays its part in writing art history just as much as the history of fashion.

♪♪ Interpreter #3: What do you think?

Interpreter: I don't think there's enough mass here.

This part should be proportionally higher.

This part is good.

But for this part to be right, this part must be at least as big as this.

The exhibition contains a representation of the idea of the shoe, the wonderful idea of the shoe.

Of the shoe that has become like an icon.

The stuff dreams are made of.

Many people's idea of a dream shoe is the crystal pump.

It's the imaginary shoe.

It's transparency.

Luminosity.

It's almost virginity through all the fairy tales.

The base is almost there.

And from here, which is a little thicker.

We draw the heel and we draw the toe.

It's an unfinished form that is between the design and the reality, entirely crystallized.

Interpreter #2: It's good that we prepared little crystals.

Interpreter: Yes, that's good.

So that's the big challenge, because it's a block of crystal which currently weighs -- 12 tons before being trimmed, and then will be reduced to 7 or 8 tons.

We need glue here.

Yes.

Okay.

Any crystals left?

That's good.

That's good.

Here, too.

Interpreter #2: Until 1850, most artists were entrepreneurs, including Delacroix and Ingres.

Bruegel had 250 staff.

Michelangelo 200.

He was the son of an industrialist.

They all had assistants, Raphael the same.

They needed guys who would grind pigments, some who would make binders, others frames, some the backgrounds, others the gilding.

There's a hole in that one.

Tell me something.

What have I got tomorrow?

Interpreter #4: Tomorrow is fairly busy.

There's the meeting at Capucines at 9:15.

At 11 you're seeing Lavinia.

At 12:15, you're at Jean Noel's.

At 1:30, you're having an MRI on your shoulder.

At two, you're at Doha and you're seeing Sara Boston at 5:30.

Interpreter: Okay.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ We really come to the heart of an idolatry thing, which is the palanquin under which is the crystal shoe.

A kind of portable temple was required to house the shoe, the very symbol of the shoe.

One.

Two, three.

Here.

The shape will come here.

It is made in Spain and also in India.

It is fully embroidered by the workshops of Sabyasachi.

Yes.

Yes.

This one [speaks French].

♪♪ Interpreter: My work is also other people's work.

I'm going to try to make this exhibition a celebration of everything connected to the artisans and artists with whom I've worked.

The marriages with the various people, the various characters who formed the whole.

My entire work.

♪♪ [ Woman speaking indistinctly over PA ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Hammering ] An exhibition is a chance for me to look at the work, to make a synthesis of things that were done, that I liked, to see what I still like, see what I kept, see what my memory kept.

See the evolution of the work and how things worked out with other people, the collaborations.

No dragon, just... Basically, it's a completely selfish thing, mixed with a desire to share with a lot of people who'd like to know more about the work and like to look at it in a broader way.

We can even try something like this color also.

Like this.

All there to see.

[ Collaborator speaking global language ] Interpreter: In this country, there's one thing that's very important.

And you see it everywhere, through the architecture, through nature.

But then right away through architecture, the architecture of houses and the architecture of temples, you can see there's an innate hunger for detail.

And I can relate to that completely.

Because I do a job that is small in scale, but where there really is attention to detail.

Good.

[ Indistinct chatter ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ I have always looked at things.

I've always collected things.

I have always visited places.

I've always taken an interest in lots of things.

Totally gratuitously.

I didn't think that it might fuel a future project, but basically I realized now that it's not that I believe in writing.

That is, that things were written.

But basically all of that is part of my job.

It's as if I'd already done very disparate things, but things were starting to -- to overlap.

[ Rhythmic music in distance ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Today's the 22nd.

So by the 24th... We have November, one month.

November, December, almost to the day.

We're four months from the exhibition.

♪♪ I know my diary by heart now.

Day by day until the exhibition.

I can only be ill for a maximum of 48 hours.

If I fall ill, it has to be a weekend.

The 21st and the 22nd.

And by December 23rd, I must be better.

Interpreter #4: As you can imagine, there is so much work.

Interpreter: The red is beautiful, too.

Interpreter #4: That's the red we chose.

Interpreter: I think it's normal, four months before, that a lot of things are done.

And I think it's normal, four months before, that there are still things to do.

Questions, areas of doubt, but it's okay.

The lion's share has been done and the part that hasn't been done -- well, there's still mystery.

It is rather exciting.

♪♪ ♪ Everybody's gonna love today Gonna love today, gonna love today ♪ ♪ Everybody's gonna love today Gonna love today ♪ ♪ Any way you want to ♪ Interpreter #2: We hear the name Louboutin in rap songs, in TV series with global reach, et cetera.

It embodies something.

And this is where humans prevail over ideology, concepts, and so on.

He's managed to embody something very strong.

And yes, that is part of a common culture.

♪ Everybody's gonna love today, love today, love today ♪ Interpreter #5: It feels like he brings this theatrical dimension to life on the street, bringing the drama, the experience of being on stage to ordinary people.

Certainly not a possession experience.

♪ Wait 'til your mama and your papa's gone, papa's gone ♪ ♪ Mama mama papa ♪ ♪ Shock shock me shock shock me shock shock ♪ ♪ Said everybody's gonna love today, gonna love today ♪ Interpreter: To get these two the right way around, what's important is to start from this point of view.

Here, for example, I can see it better.

I can see the design better.

It's not a formula.

I can't explain my recipe and say, "I did this and it went well.

So do what I did and you'll be okay."

♪ Book her, nook her, walk away ♪ From time to time, when students come to see me and ask what I can tell them, how I can help them in their work, I find that pretty complicated.

♪ Papa's gone ♪ What I generally say to students is, don't try to be an idea of yourself in 15 years time.

Don't fix goals that are too precise because you don't know what might happen.

You never know what will happen for yourself.

It's complicated and that's good.

So much the better.

♪ Love, love me Love, love me Love, love ♪ [ MIKA's "Love Today" continues playing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪