Strippers and synchronised swimmers — what happened at Christian Louboutin's dazzlingly camp Paris show

Have you considered taking a dip in your stilettos?

Christian Louboutin, who on Friday evening lit up Paris Fashion Week with such a dazzling display of campness even Emily In Paris was outdone, suggested as much, kitting out the French Olympic artistic swimming team in his new “Miss Z” red-bottom shoes for a show quite unlike the others this season.

Paris is Louboutining: the set featured a vast, turquoise shoe-slide (Alex Dobé)

Taking over the vast, art deco Piscine Molitor, guests counting Tom Daley, Daphne Guinness and Cole Sprouse braved the splash as they took their waterside-seats. They looked onto the 33-metre long pool, dressed up at one end with a white stage front complete with 15 glowing red windows and a vast pair of turquoise heels (which doubled as a slide). It was titled “Paris is Louboutining”, a play on the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning which captured New York’s Downton queer ball scene — and it was a scene to behold.

Making a splash: the French Olympic artistic swimming team were mesmerising (Alex Dobé)

The show — somewhere between a concert and a cabaret — opened with smoke, screams, and a fireman strip tease. Later, it was the impressive routine by synchronised swimmers, choreographed by Spanish director Blanca Li, in their two-tone, fuschia and blue cossies and pop-shade, metallic heels (green, silver, blue, gold — you name it) that were most transfixing, shooting their feet above the water, twisting, turning, and dunking all in well-heeled harmony.

By the finale, bubbles had filled the room, American singer LP blared into the microphone, and Mr Louboutin himself had left his seat to shoot down the shoe-slide into the water. There was a tangible fabulousness, and the room revelled in it — a welcome pause from the seriousness that has otherwise dominated Paris this season, as gossip around incoming and exiting creative directors at the top houses boils over.

The vision: photographer David LaChapelle art directed the event (Alex Dobé)

Louboutin enlisted the help of photographer David LaChapelle to art direct the event, and explains: “When I thought of doing something with artistic swimming, I kind of immediately, without even closing my eyes, knew that it would come with bright colours. One person comes to my mind [when I think of colour] — it's David LaChapelle.”

“The two of us, we know that no one enhances a pair of shoes better than dancers. It becomes not just a pair of shoes, but it changes the way you walk, the body language, the way you're going to move. The movement given to shoes is the best when it's attached to dancers,” he continued.

Miss Z: Louboutin used the moment to launch a new style, ‘Miss Z’ which is out next year (Alex Dobé)

He was set on hosting it at the Molitor, designed by Lucien Pollet in 1929, because “it’s an important pool in terms of sight — it's all based on a beautiful yellow mixed with a beautiful kind of medium blue — but also in terms of history. In fact, it was the first pool in Paris which was by the river where women were in bikinis.”

Certainly this spectacle, a Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory for fashionistas, will go down as its own chapter in Molitor’s books.