Louboutin sought an injunction that would have stopped Yves Saint Laurent from selling their red-soled shoes, but Judge Victor Marrero wrote in his ruling: “Because in the fashion industry color serves ornamental and aesthetic functions vital to robust competition, the court finds that Louboutin is unlikely to be able to prove that its red outsole brand is entitled to trademark protection, even if it has gained enough public recognition in the market to have acquired secondary meaning.” {NY Daily News}

In other words, even though they filed for a trademark, Marrero’s opinion is that a color shouldn’t have been approved for a trademark in the first place and Yves Saint Laurent is free to continue selling their red-soled shoes while the larger case of trademark infringement is being decided.

Louboutin can always appeal the ruling,  but the judge’s position doesn’t provide much optimism for an eventual ruling in favor of Christian Louboutin. In addition to being expensive and time consuming, once a certain number of judges agree that any rulings are legally sound, appeals can be rejected before they’re even started.

Looks like it may be safe to order those DIY red soles soon.

Christian Louboutin's famous red soles are inspiring lines of shoe sole accessories designed to imitate the look

Have you been lusting after a pair of red-soled shoes, but found yourself without the hundreds or thousands of dollars necessary to make that happen with authentic Christian Loboutins? Fakes from Chinese etailers abound online, but if you prefer your knockoffs a bit more crafty do-it-yourself red sole options are becoming easier to come by.

First up is budding 16-year-old Irish entrepreneur Tara Haughton, who offers red shoe sole stickers through her company Rosso Solini. {Stylelist} It will cost you $25 for three pairs of stickers shoe stickers to transform the bottom of your heels from what’s likely black or beige to a more vibrant shade. While we’d be embarrassed to kick up a red soled heel to show a sticker peeling off, Haughton does offer a rainbow of other colors and patterns that are pretty interesting. There are baby blue sole stickers for brides, yellow stickers if you want in on the neon trend in a subtle way, and prints including polka-dots and animal print. All of which could introduce an eye-catching aspect to what’s normally a forgotten part of the shoe – similar to Louboutins, minus the embarrassment of looking like you were trying to make your shoes something they’re not.

What if you need something a bit more permanent though? Save Your Sole, a London based company, offers half and full soles in a variety of colors including, of course, red.  Half soles will set you back £9.95 (roughly $16 at current exchange rates) while a full sole is £12.95 (about $21). If you’re not a cobbler on the side, you will have to enlist the services of a professional shoe repair shop to have your shoes resoled, but the results should last longer than stickers. If you want to get a bit more hands on, the company also sells touch up sole paint in a variety of colors for £18.95 ($31) that should work for a few pairs of shoes.

And finally, if you’re in New York, Madison Avenue Spy {via the Cut} reports that Andrade Shoe Repair on the Upper East Side has the materials in stock (they use the same red rubber that Save Your Sole sells) and will pimp your soles for a mere $22-32 in total.

We know what the Louboutin reaction to those making red-soled shoes has been (a good old fashioned black and white lawsuit), so we have to wonder how sustainable these ideas are. It’s unlikely Louboutin will be able to sue every shoe repair who offers red sole repair, and stickers aren’t exactly part of the manufacturing process. Even without lawsuits, just be aware that while the red sole may be the most prominent visual indication of a Christian Louboutin shoe, stickers or colored soles do not a designer shoe make, and designer shoes (or being mistaken for wearing them) doesn’t automatically equal style.

Exhibit A of why Silicon Valley needs more women in the venture capital arena – at the very least during due diligence: Chinese online retailer Milanoo recently sent out a press release {via Tech Crunch} announcing a multi-million dollar investment from the Chinese arm of Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s largest and most well established venture capital investment firms.

“Since its inception in July of 2008, Milanoo.com has grown by leaps and bounds. Milanoo.com has consecutively increased its revenue by 600% each year that the company has been in business. In three short years, Milanoo.com has grown to serve customers in over 180 countries around the world in seven of the most popular languages – including English, Spanish and French.” – Milanoo press release

The problem? A sizable portion of the merchandise on Milanoo is comprised of designer replica items and out and out knockoffs of everything from Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik shoes to Cate Blanchett’s lavender Givenchy Golden Globes dress and Kate Middleton’s blue Issa engagement dress. We’re not talking “inspired by” designs, of the sort that ASOS built it’s very successful e-commerce business on either; among the domestic Chinese mass market brands are enough designer replicas to fill two or three Canal Street stores.

Christian Louboutin’s legal tenacity for the right to use a red sole on shoes is well documented on designs that are distinctively different from his own, and the company released a video of thousands of Chinese replicas being crushed under the tires of a bulldozer. Though they aren’t called Louboutin replicas by name, the red sole  is difficult to miss, as is the Christian Louboutin logo left in on the product images lifted from other websites (who presumably sell the real thing).

That doesn’t even scratch the surface of the dresses, which are often portrayed through a single image of celebrities on the red carpet wearing the originals that have likely inspired the Milanoo replica version. If the imitation weren’t… flattering enough, many of the images feature the Milanoo watermark on the photos to give the impression that the celebrities are wearing Milanoo.

Original Chinese fashion design talent is not an oxymoron, but China’s efforts to establish homegrown brands that can compete internationally will continue to be a struggle when the segment of the fashion sector that receives “multiple millions” in financial backing is at the risk of having their best selling products wiped out on the wrong side of a bulldozer.

While they do not specify exact figures, one of the more interesting aspects of the press release is the year over year growth and global footprint that Milanoo’s growth suggests is possible for the counterfeit apparel industry. We’ve previously noted that the online promotions counterfeiters employ often trump the original brands’ efforts, but for all of their savvy it’s still normally something of an organic process; the replica sellers don’t have the budgets for agencies and professional promotion. More concerning for the brands behind the original designs, the institutional funding attached to this investment would also seem to indicate that may be changing, and this shadowy segment of the fashion industry is gaining legitimacy faster than anyone may have known.

Can you identify which red sole shoe is YSL, and which is Christian Louboutin?

If you see a flash of red on the bottom of a woman’s shoe, your first thought might be that those shoes are by Christian Louboutin. That’s certainly what Christian Louboutin thinks your first thought will be, because they recently filed a lawsuit against Yves Saint Laurent in Manhattan which claims that “Defendants use of red footwear outsoles that are virtually identical to plaintiff’s Red Sole Mark,” and that the shoes “is likely to cause and is causing confusion, mistake and deception among the relevant purchasing public as to the origin of the infringing footwear.” {NYDN via the Cut}

This is certainly a unique case, given that Yves Saint Laurent isn’t exactly selling shoes at knockoff prices. Loboutin was one of the first designers to use a colored sole to brand his footwear, but should someone be able to trademark or copyright the placement of a color?

In the photo above, the color of the sole on the Yves Saint Laurent tribute sandal (left) does look a shade different from the color of the sole on the Christian Louboutin sandals (right).  It’s worth noting that the Yves Saint Laurent shoes are part of a collection that includes yellow sandals with a yellow sole, and the Cut says that the collection these shoes are from also includes navy shoes with navy soles, green shoes with green soles, etc.

The slight difference in shade might be a matter of photography and lighting though, and to someone who’s not an avid fashion fan, it’s not difficult to believe that someone could mistake the Yves Saint Laurent shoes for a pair of Louboutins based on the sole coloring. At $795 (the price of the YSL tribute sandals pictured), that doesn’t dilute the Louboutin brand in the same way that a $100 exact replica might, but it could certainly harm the positioning of red soled shoes being something exclusive to Christian Louboutin.

While we can certainly see, and support, Louboutin’s position in this case, we also have to wonder if it might set a bad precedent. Will Chanel be able to sue bag makers who create quilted leather goods? That wouldn’t just include counterfeiters, it would make Marc Jacobs and plenty of established fashion designers susceptible to punishment as well. When dots begin to take over fall wardrobes, will one designer decide that another’s look too similar to theirs?

Should this actually make it to court, we’ll be tracking the decision.

The error page displayed when typing in robertocavalli.com from Google Chrome. That is not gifted.

L2, a luxury think tank focusing on digital innovation, recently published their second annual Digital IQ index, a ranking of luxury brands’ online initiatives. It’s a balanced report that takes into account things like the brand website, online marketing, social media presence and influence, and mobile offerings.

So it’s no surprise to see brands like Burberry, who took hits from critics for their strong internet engagement, labeled as digital “geniuses.”  Ralph Lauren, one of the first fashion labels with a dedicated mobile shop, and Coach, who’ve been aggressively pursuing blogger and social media engagement, also understandably fall into the genius category. Louis Vuitton’s site isn’t the best for search, but there’s a real commitment to online content via Nowness and Gucci’s relaunched digital flagship takes advantage of HTML5 to mostly replace an overdependence on Flash that still hobbles many fashion brand websites.

While the exact order of the top 10 or so sites could be up for discussion, they seem to be fairly accurately positioned. Past the top 10, however, things get strange and seem to prop up some of fashion’s idiot savants. Brands who offer beautiful products that generate buzz and desire, but fail at the basics: an attractive website that’s accessible to users across various devices.

Imran Amed, editor of the Business of Fashion, points out that Chanel – ranked number 11 and classified as “gifted,” has extremely limited e-commerce (fragrance and beauty products in the US only). Perhaps 10 years ago, e-commerce would be an innovative “extra,” but in 2010 we’re well past maturity for online shopping. Overlooking that does seem a bit odd.  Christian Louboutin, whose slow, Flash-heavy site (not viewable on the iPad, iPhone and many mobile devices) drags on a high-speed internet connection with not one, but two kitschy intros, recently launched e-commerce. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to find from the homepage (if you’re patient enough to give it the 2 minutes or so it takes to load), not to mention the fact that counterfeiters are still doing e-commerce and social media better than the brand itself. The online store doesn’t appear in a search for “Christian Louboutin” on Google or Bing in either the paid or unpaid sections, and YouTube videos haven’t changed that. That they’re classified in the same category as Calvin Klein, who along with QR-code billboards that bridge mobile and offline marketing, has livestreamed shows and made obvious integrated efforts with Facebook and social media is frankly a disservice to both brands.

Roberto Cavalli, who can’t figure out how to do a simple redirect (type in robertocavalli.com without the www. and you end up with a 404 page not found message), is the lowest “gifted” brand, but really? This is what we’re letting pass as gifted?

Social media, and thousands or even millions of followers can’t excuse or make up for a dated website lacking basic functionality. The Digital IQ index is needed, and a good step towards getting brands to put some effort into their online efforts. Rewarding the companies who are failing at the basics with extra credit for playing well with others (via social media) won’t help change the fact that they’re failing at the online basics though.

The problem? Those Gucci shoes aren't Gucci, Christian Iouboutin is a letter away from a lawsuit, and those bags are definitely fake

There have been some brands putting real effort into both. Take Louis Vuitton: shuttering eLuxury opened the door for several counterfeit sites who then had less competition from the legitimate brand for searches. On the paid search side, Louis Vuitton tried to sue Google for allowing advertisers to bid on their name, which is trademarked in many of the countries where they operate. The final ruling was that while individual advertisers could be penalized for misleading users, Google was not responsible for the content or practices of advertisers bidding on brand names.

We pointed out that while the ruling may have been a blow on the paid search side, larger problems were present in the unpaid search results because the counterfeit sites were better optimized than Louis Vuitton’s official site.

If for no other reason than performing well with visitors from search engines, and pushing replica sites further down, dropping eLuxury was a mistake. But the reason eLuxury closed was to put more effort into Nowness, a site curated by Jefferson Hack (publisher of fashion magazine Dazed & Confused). Nowness has an item a day format that doesn’t focus on any single brand, but a person or cultural event to offer a glimpse at the personality behind brands rather than pure product.

On Facebook, more than a million people have become fans of the Louis Vuitton Art of Travel page which features special notes to Facebook fans, behind the scenes videos and interviews with soccer legends Pele, Diego Maradona and Zinedine Zidane (who also appear in the current advertising campaign). So while there are improvements that could be made, the Louis Vuitton online strategy is obviously not centered on suing counterfeit sites out of existence – though we’re sure it’s still part of the plan.

A Facebook ad for fake Christian Louboutin shoes

Other brands haven’t gotten the memo, and are still taking a defensive approach to participation online when they should be on the offense. One example? The company behind those infamous red soles, Christian Louboutin. They launched an entire site dedicated to showcasing crackdowns on Chinese factories manufacturing replica shoes. Unfortunately, the official site misses the mark for search, and even efforts like the recently launched US e-commerce site {Christian Louboutin US online store} are hobbled by huge, slow loading Flash-intros and animations. It’s obviously intended to be an experience site, but the experience isn’t good. There is a good effort on Facebook, where 250,000 fans are update about company announcements.

These efforts, however, are not enough to stop small and nimble counterfeit competitors, who have replica Christian Louboutin shoes, fake Louis Vuitton and Chanel bags and more appearing in Facebook ads, and organically in the news feeds of people targeted by interest. We’ve blacked out names to protect the innocent and the guilty, but in the photo of the fake Louis Vuitton, you can see the sheer number of users being targeted through photo tags. As those photos appear in the newsfeeds of friends, the counterfeit campaign becomes viral.

Big luxury may have the legal power, but it seems back alley bootleggers have the creativity.

Click to view more photos of counterfeit social media campaigns.

Sea of (fake) shoes

There’s only one problem: none of it is likely to make a significant difference. StopFakeLouboutin.com details legal actions the label has launched against counterfeiters, from raiding Chinese factories, to seizing inventory from online resellers before they could sell the fakes on auction sites.

But the biggest problem is Louboutin’s own site. Outside of gaming and fashion, most commercial brands have abandoned the all-Flash website in favor of more accessible technology that makes the content available to a wider audience, including search engines and mobile browsers. With Apple’s decision to not support Flash on the iPhone or iPad, one might hope that even online and fashion would move towards the best practice of using flash only for certain elements (like video).

Unfortunately, many labels remain stuck in the year 2000, and assault visitors with music and video that plays unprompted, enormous Flash sites that take minutes to download even on broadband (forget about a mobile connection), and no clear way for visitors or search spiders to navigate the sites outside of flashing images that force you to chase them around the screen to find out what they’re about. According to Google’s Search Keyword Tool, 12,000 mobile users search for “Christian Louboutin” each month. While that may not seem like a huge amount of people compared to the 1.8 million web users who search for the brand, that’s still 12,000 people who wouldn’t be able to find retailer information or addresses, style information or anything else on the official Louboutin website, because it’s not designed in a way that would allow mobile visitors to see anything. Search spiders? They’re seeing the same nothingness.

Is it any wonder visitors abandon official sites in favor of counterfeiters who offer a wide array of shoes, ready to purchase with a click of the mouse?

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because it is. We looked at similar issues plaguing Louis Vuitton’s search results, but it appears Louboutin is following a similar, expensive path which will end with no better results. You see, in addition to the video of fake Louboutins being run over by a bulldozer, the site lists recent legal victories. While shutting down the warehouses that manufacture the fake shoes is a smart move, listing websites selling fakes is probably not the best idea.

In what has to be a bit of unintended irony, the simple HTML references to the sites mean that there’s a better chance of Google and other search engines indexing the content of those sites before they “see” anything on Louboutin’s official site.

Louboutin is obviously in the shoe business, not the internet business, so we don’t hold it against him that there’s been a bit of a learning curve. We wish the company the best in protecting their brand against counterfeiters, but if they spent half the amount dedicated to legal costs to building a modern, accessible site the battle might take a fraction of the effort to win.

Otherwise, it turns into an endless game of whack-a-mole (with much prettier moles, of course) where one fake site goes down, and another pops up weeks later.

The sneaker collaborations keep rolling in, with Married to the MOB x Lacoste being the latest.  The drop features the lace-embellished Hironia high-top sneaker, which was apparently inspired by Christian Louboutin’s lacy shoe confections for the ladies.

Now we’re all for gender neutrality, yet we’re having trouble envisioning the demographic that the MOB x Lacoste collab is supposed to pinpoint.  There’s nothing wrong with boys wearing whatever they want — including lace — but we can’t help thinking that the Hironia is completely missing the mark and will sit on shelves much longer than either party would like. Update: we typed too quickly. Married to the Mob and Lacoste’s Louboutin influenced mashup is for the girls. Targeting questions answered, we’re sure these will find their way into the closets of a few active fashionistas who love the look of the red-soled heels, but can’t resign themselves to actually running around town in them.

Read the full story {High Snobiety}

 

Read more {nymag.com}

Read more {wwd.com}

If you love lace and can’t resist the red soled foot candy that is Christian Louboutin, you certainly won’t be plagued by a lack of choice this season. For this week’s fantasy fashion expedition, we round up our favorite pumps, booties and boots among the many lace lovelies on offer.

Top Image

Lace Bootie
Christian Louboutin
$1785

{Bergdorf Goodman}

1. Ronda Dina Lace
Christian Louboutin
$1033

{My Theresa}

2. Paola 100 Ankle Boots
Christian Louboutin
$1155

{Net-a-Porter}

3. Clic Clac Lace Bootie
Christian Louboutin
$1064

{My Theresa}

4. Ambro Lace Peep Toe
Christian Louboutin
$825

{Neiman Marcus}

5. Papilipi Crepe Satin Pumps
Christian Louboutin
$812

{My Theresa}

6. Paola Botta Lace Knee-High Boot
Christian Louboutin
$1745

{Barneys New York}