Fashion has a language all its own. That's clear. For example, you or I might look at this:
And identify it as a "Hideous Sequin Stripper Heel"
Or we might look at these:
And identify them as "Garbage Shoes."
But in the language of fashion these hilariously awful, overpriced stripper shoes are known as "Louboutins." See, Christian Louboutin revolutionized the shoe design industry by taking ugly platform stripper heels and…wait for it….painting the bottoms of the soles red! In fashion parlance, he is "a legendary luxury footwear designer." In everyday English he is "an asshole who takes himself way too seriously."
How seriously can a guy who paints the bottoms of platform heels red really take himself, you ask? So, so seriously.
From WWD:
Christian Louboutin is the latest designer geared to give Barbie a makeover, with three dolls he’s conceived top to toe due to be released over the coming months. Louboutin has even reshaped the dolls’ figures as he doesn’t find the classic Barbie’s morphology très flattering. “He found her ankles were too fat,” said a Louboutin spokeswoman.
Did he also find that he's "designing" tiny, thumbnail-sized shoes for a plastic doll? Barbie doesn't even have toes. Her foot looks like a flesh-colored duck's bill pointed at the ground. Did that pose a problem for doll-shoe-designing perfectionist Christian Louboutin? What about the fact that she can't walk? Or breathe? Or say, "Jesus Christ, these shoes are hideous. Get them off of my misshapen duck bill feet."?
Making a shoe for a doll requires absolutely no thought. Wait, that's not fair. It requires one thought: "Let's make a shoe for this doll." That's it. Just draw a shoe, send it to Mattel, have them paint the bottoms of the tiny shoes red, and you're done, Christian Louboutin. You don't have to pretend like you're designing, or thinking, or taking it seriously. No one else is. Cause it's a goddamn doll. And if you call Barbie out for having cankles, you don't look like a serious designer, you just look like an idiot. Unfortunately "idiot" translates to "serious designer" in fashion-speak.
Then there's this:
Apparently one of the three dolls will be revealed in time for the Cannes International Film Festival, so we can all take a peek at how skinny a doll's ankles really need to be to wear Louboutin's must-coveted stilettos. In a clever touch, each of the dolls' outfits will come with a special Louboutin shoe box for the Barbie's fancy new heels.
Ha. In fashion, "miniature shoebox for miniature shoes" equals "clever." Wait until someone "designs" tiny shoes for Ken that come with a tiny bottle of shoe polish. They'll be called "genius."