Christian Louboutin has lobbed a trademark infringement suit against Yves Saint Laurent for coloring the soles of its red shoes red, an aesthetic decision that seemed to have been harmlessly made to create an entirely red shoe. Seeking $1 million in damages, Louboutin claims YSL copied his idea of red soles. Loub’s suit reads: “Mr Louboutin is the first designer to develop the idea of having red soles on women’s shoes.” YSL argues that Louboutin was by no means the first dude to have the idea to make the soles of shoes red. Before YSL began making them in the seventies, the label notes in court papers, there was the ever-stylish King Louis XIV, not to mention Dorothy:
Red outsoles are a commonly used ornamental design feature in footwear, dating as far back as the red shoes worn by King Louis XIV in the 1600s and the ruby red shoes that carried Dorothy home in The Wizard of Oz.
There are also the all-too-common (and offensive) blatant Christian Louboutin knockoffs on all the Kardashain wannabes out there.
’You didn’t invent red soles’: Yves Saint Laurent kicks back at Christian Louboutin [Daily Mail]