Oh, Thank God... Fake Louboutin Shoes Stopped At The Border Before They Could Embarrass Anyone

I don't know much about women's shoes but I remember a woman friend of mine who worked at a non-profit spending an astronomical amount of money on a pair once. They had shiny, red-lacquered soles and looked kind of clunky to me. But what do I know? I asked her how she could justify the cost-- she wanted to be reimbursed-- and she said she appeared on TV frequently and had to look great to sell the positions her non-profit was taking. That was the first time I ever heard about women's shoe designer Christian Louboutin. The shoes didn't look they were worth the $1,100 "investment" to me and when I saw her on TV the next couple of times I noticed that there were never any shots below the waste. Maybe they made her feel like she was on the top of the world or something. Louboutin's first customer is supposed to have been Princess Caroline of Monaco and that helped him snare fashion trend-setters-- in certain circles-- like Diane von Fürstenberg and Catherine Deneuve. They're absolutely a thing women who want to make a statement about being part of the one percent can use as a symbol. These days you seem them on the feet of Lady Gaga, J.Lo, Danielle Steel (who owns 6,000 pairs) and on Kardashians. My friend, it turned out, had a closetful. I wonder if any were made in China.

Christian Louboutin shoes, the real ones, are made in Italy. Last week $18 million worth of counterfeit Louboutins were confiscated at Southern California ports from 5 ships coming over from China. Louboutin makes 600,000 pairs of shoes a year (none in Asia) and he claims his original inspiration from a sign he saw at the Musée national des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie in Paris where he saw a sign from Africa forbidding women wearing sharp stilettos from entering a building for fear of damage to the extensive wood flooring. "I wanted to defy that," he later claimed. "I wanted to create something that broke rules and made women feel confident and empowered." Or at least rich ones. His empowering shoes bring in a quarter billion dollars annually... not counting the counterfeit ones, of course.

Making and selling fake Louboutins is big business and if you're buying them online from a website other than Louboutin's own-- or from a well known luxury brand outlet like Barneys, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman or Nordstrom you're probably buying some cheap knock-offs-- even if you're paying a lot. There are thousands of sites claiming to sell Louboutins that sell counterfeits like the ones seized last week in Long Beach. U.S. Customs and Border Protection confiscated 20,457 pairs which cost around $3/pair to make (total value: $57,000) with a suggested retail value of around $18 million.