A Redsplosion from Louboutin
In his first outing as Men’s Creative Director for the maison, Jaden Smith hasn’t just designed shoes—he’s conjured a universe. One the audience is invited to step into
Christian Louboutin’s Men’s Fall/Winter 2026 debut under Jaden Smith is pure cinema. Anyone can see that it’s an immersive manifesto for modern masculinity. Staged as a gradual revelation across interconnected spaces, the experience honours the Maison’s heritage while unmistakably signalling a shift: this is Christian Louboutin Men refracted through Jaden’s singular lens.
Photography and cinema—central pillars of Smith’s creative language and rooted in France’s role as their birthplace—make for the exhibition’s conceptual spine.
The opening Projection Room nods to early image-makers, from photography pioneers Niépce and Daguerre to cinema’s founding Lumière brothers, recalling a time when light and motion were radical tools for shaping identity. Against grainy silhouettes of medieval castles, shoes move across screens alongside tactile artworks and textures, suggesting that the future of menswear is not a clean break from the past. Jaden’s inspiration is explicit and expansive: the lineage of working men across centuries—the stone masons, the scribes, the doctors—figures defined by discipline, craft and purpose, reimagined through what he calls “lost epochs of time” and materials “born from stars, forged under immense pressure deep in cosmic space.”
As the exhibition unravels into the collection itself, each silhouette becomes a vessel for that mythology. The Trapman corner reintroduces a signature shoe through the prism of 1990s hip-hop, the cultural force that shaped Jaden’s worldview and continues to define a language where music and fashion move in lockstep. For Smith, hip-hop isn’t nostalgia; it’s the foundation upon which he imagines “formal attire for the men of the future.” The Corteo, first introduced in F/W ’19, transplants the collection in the Maison’s history. Nearby, the Penny loafer appears in three iterations—classic, slingback and sandal. Then comes the TCT I. Short for Tactical, it is the collection’s most overtly functional statement, conceived as footwear’s answer to a technical waterproof jacket.
Beyond the shoes, the exhibition becomes a meditation on image-making and collective memory. A 360-degree installation of vintage TV screens splices together fragments from across eras—reminding us how images sculpt who we are. Select styles perch atop antique columns inspired by the allegory of the Virgin Weeping over a Broken Column, a poetic nod to knowledge, fragility and craftsmanship passed down through generations. Intimacy surfaces in the form of an Angel sculpture from Christian Louboutin’s personal collection, first photographed with Jaden and positioned here as a symbol of their creative bond.
The journey continues with a photographic installation where Jaden’s pieces are captured using early techniques, developed by hand beneath cloths with silver and chemical solutions, some printed as red-illuminated negatives in homage to the Maison’s iconic hue. A red anamorphosis distorts perspective, asking viewers to shift their position—literally and metaphorically—before the experience culminates in a monumental exploded red head, an immersive final act.
Smith’s vision arrives first as an avant-première capsule in red, black and white, which dropped on January 22, 2026, ahead of the full F/W ’26 collection landing in June, but make no mistake: this isn’t a teaser. It’s a declaration. And Jaden Smith is writing it in bold, luminous red.