LOUBOUTIN 'KICKOFF'
SPRING/SUMMER 2026

David LaChapelle x Christian Louboutin

At the Dojo Arena in Paris’s 14th arrondissement, David LaChapelle transformed the charged ritual of an American homecoming game into an electrified performance of fashion, sport, and theatre. For Spring/Summer 2026, Christian Louboutin’s legendary ‘The Loubi Show’ unfolded as a five-act odyssey of choreography, color, and spectacle – a world conceived and staged by LaChapelle, where athletic pageantry met haute couture in a fever dream of music and movement.

Following the water-soaked fantasia of last year’s synchronized swimming performance, LaChapelle reunited with Louboutin and choreographer Blanca Li to create another theatrical experience – one that blurred the line between runway and ritual. Under LaChapelle’s kaleidoscopic eye, the stadium became a living tableau: illuminated by marching bands, roving cheer squads, jumbotrons, and the surreal mischief of mascots and dancers.

The show began in silence, with a lone figure – a Parisian model ‘as French as the Eiffel Tower,’ according to LaChapelle – pushing a lawnmower across the turf in towering red-soled heels. It was a suburban gesture reimagined as pop iconography, an overture to a world where irony and beauty coexist.

From there, the field erupted into motion. The Paris Fire Brigade Marching Band (Sapeurs-Pompiers de Paris) filled the space with a brass rendition of The White Stripes’ ‘Seven Nation Army.’ Cheerleaders, acrobats, and dancers flooded the gridiron in a visual crescendo of color and rhythm. A baton twirler, gymnasts, and a seahorse mascot (Louboutin’s favorite animal) moved through the crowd, each element refracted through LaChapelle’s surrealist humor and saturated palette.

The narrative unfolded across five vivid acts, each reframing the vocabulary of sport into a cinematic sequence. Li’s choreography translated drills, formations, and cheers into expressive gestures; athletes in glistening socks and red-bottomed heels spun and leapt with balletic precision.

Milo Thoretton, performing under his stage name Asphalt, embodied the archetypal quarterback-heartthrob – part performer, part character – leading the halftime interlude in leather and rhinestones. His live covers of Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ ‘Seven Nation Army,’ and Britney Spears’ ‘Toxic’ threaded nostalgia and pop theatricality through the show’s structure, heightening its emotional pulse.

Throughout the performance, Louboutin’s Cassia line took center stage: ballet-inspired silhouettes that fuse delicacy with dynamism. Pompom-waving cheerleaders wore the Cassia Annmac, a reimagined ballet pump with jeweled leg warmers in yellow, purple, and red. Male dancers donned Oxfords from the Cassia Ruben, marking the line’s first entrance into menswear.

At the core of the show stood a tribute to the Ballerina Ultima – the sculptural heel first introduced in 2007 – now revisited as the show’s centerpiece. Presented atop a towering birthday cake and entirely encrusted in sparkling crystals, the shoe appeared both as costume and monument. Dancers performed atop the confection, their movements fusing grace and excess, craftsmanship and play.

As the final scene unfolded, every performer – dancers, band members, cheerleaders, and mascots – converged on the field. Confetti filled the air as Christian Louboutin himself joined LaChapelle and Li at center stage, tambourine in hand, embodying the show’s spirit of celebration and creative camaraderie.

The performance culminated in a jubilant crescendo of sound and light, a tableau that merged the ecstasy of sport with the precision of couture. Truffle-flavoured popcorn in the stands, a marching band in formation, and red soles gleaming under stadium lights: LaChapelle once again proved that, with the right shoes, art can indeed be athletic.

By turning the runway into a stage, LaChapelle transforms fashion into a living cinema. His direction reimagines the familiar — the cheerleader, the quarterback, the mascot — as archetypes of beauty and devotion. Together with Louboutin and Li, he constructs a universe where movement becomes narrative, and theatricality reveals truth.