Christian Louboutin has released campaign images for the label’s lipstick launch, featuring a model, as shown above, styled to resemble the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti, one of the most copied works of ancient Egypt. The image has received some push back on social media because her skin tone is viewed as far too light given her origin.
However, for Louboutin, the choice in the model’s hue probably has deeper meanings than the casual observer might assume. It’s probably no mistake that the model’s tone is similar to Louboutin’s own because the campaign links to the designer personally in other ways as well.
In “Christian Louboutin: The World’s Most Luxurious Shoes,” a documentary that premiered in 2015, the designer talked about growing up assuming he was adopted because his skin color was so much darker than his three sisters. According to The Telegraph, Louboutin in the film also reveals that he discovered just last year the reason for the difference in his appearance. While he wasn’t adopted, he was the product of a passionate affair his mother had with an Egyptian man.
Some part of him most of have intuited the secret as a child because in 2012 he told The Scotsman: “I felt I wasn’t French. My family was very French and so I decided they had probably adopted me. But instead of feeling it was terrible and that I was an outsider who had to go and find my real family, I invented my own history, full of characters from Egypt because I was very into the pharaohs.”
All of which adds quite a bit of explanation to his choice in a Nefertiti-themed campaign.
As for the lipstick itself, it’s now available for purchase on ChristianLouboutin.com.
