Louboutin’s trademark red soles have the same effect on women that a matador’s cape has on bulls: they see them and charge. The idea to give each pair “China Red” lacquer soles came to him after the prototype of the Pensée arrived in his atelier. He liked the design, but something left him wanting. In a moment of genius he snatched his assistant’s nail polish out of her hands. “I just painted it to see if the big mass of black was the problem and then suddenly, ‘Boom’!” he says. “It popped up exactly like my drawing and I thought, ‘This is it.'”