What heels!

Shoemaker Christian Louboutin is suing Yves Saint Laurent, charging the fashion house ripped off his famous red-sole trademark.

The crimson underside has been a fixture of Louboutin's gravity-defying heels since 1992, when the designer first painted red nail polish on the bottom of one pair, says a lawsuit filed Thursday in Manhattan Federal Court.

Louboutin charges that this year, Yves Saint Laurent started selling its own version of the red soled shoe.

"Defendants use of red footwear outsoles that are virtually identical to plaintiff's Red Sole Mark is likely to cause and is causing confusion, mistake and deception among the relevant purchasing public as to the origin of the infringing footwear," the lawsuit says.

"The location of the bright color on the outsole of a woman's pump is said to provide an alluring 'flash of red' when a woman walks down the street, or on the red carpet of a special event," the lawsuit says.

The 27-page suit lists a veritable who's who of fashionistas who love Louboutins, including the casts of "Sex in the City," "Desperate Housewives" and "Gossip Girl."

It says that in January, Louboutin learned YSL was selling red-soles at Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys New York, Bergdorf Goodman, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus.

Louboutin has repeatedly asked Yves Saint Laurent to stop selling the shoes. A spokeswoman for Yves Saint Laurent declined to comment.

@ all the puns

Red alert! Louboutin sues YSL in shoe war

Christian Louboutin is seeing red.

The famed French fashionista sued rival Parisian design house Yves Saint Laurent yesterday for copying the cardinal-colored soles of his fancy footwear.

Louboutin wants more than $1 million in damages for alleged trademark infringement and counterfeiting of his "instantly recognizable" feature, which can command more than $3,200 for a pair of peep-toe pumps.

"Mr. Louboutin is the first designer to develop the idea of having red soles on women's shoes," the Manhattan federal court suit says.

"His first conception of this idea occurred when he painted red nail polish on the black soles of a pair of women's shoes."

Since introducing red-lacquered soles in 1992, Louboutin says his design has been embraced by fashion-conscious females who want "an alluring flash of red" at the bottom of their ensembles.

While sales were slow at first in the United States, the suit says things kicked into gear during the last decade when "celebrity stylists began to dress their clients in Louboutin footwear."

"Consumers would regularly come into stores with pages torn from magazines demanding 'the shoes with the red soles' or relating them to the celebrities seen wearing them in the magazines," the suit says.

Court papers credit trend-setters such as Oprah, Madonna, Angelina Jolie and Beyoncé with making the shoes "the footwear of choice among glamorous celebrities."

The suit notes that "the lead characters regularly wore Louboutin footwear in episodes of 'Sex and the City'. . . as well as in both 'Sex and the City' movies," and says the soles were celebrated in Jennifer Lopez's single "Louboutins."

Even Barbie got in on the action during a yearlong "exclusive collaboration" in which Louboutin designed pumps in the doll's signature pink color for a 50th-anniversary celebration in 2009.

But despite going to "enormous lengths to police the marketplace" for knockoffs, Louboutin says he learned in January that Yves Saint Laurent "had just begun selling women's shoes with red outsoles that are virtually identical" to his.

The suit cites four YSL models -- Tribute, Tribtoo, Palais and Woodstock -- that are being sold in the same posh stores that sell Louboutins, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus.

And while Louboutins start around $450 for a pair of simple black pumps -- and top out at nearly $3,500 for ones encrusted with Swarovski crystals -- the YSL versions retail for between about $600 and $800 a pair. Spokeswomen for both YSL and parent company the Gucci Group declined comment.

I have a pair of shoes from Chinese Laundry with red soles and every time I wear them someone will compliment them, thinking their Louboutins.

Seriously my cobbler has red soles, so you can customize any shoe to look like Louboutins.

Did they patent the red sole? Can you patent a color?

The lawsuit will fail and pretty soon the market will be swamped with red soled shoes and my cheap old Chinese Laundry peep-toe, patent leather pumps will no longer be special!

CallMeCarrie said:

I have a pair of shoes from Chinese Laundry with red soles and every time I wear them someone will compliment them, thinking their Louboutins.

Seriously my cobbler has red soles, so you can customize any shoe to look like Louboutins.

Did they patent the red sole? Can you patent a color?

The lawsuit will fail and pretty soon the market will be swamped with red soled shoes and my cheap old Chinese Laundry peep-toe, patent leather pumps will no longer be special!

I was thinking the SAME thing. And there have been knockoffs for AGES. Just search for Louboutins and the knockoff sites come up. They're only suing now cuz it's YSL and will get more attention. I don't get why YSL would even go there cuz the same people/celebs who buy Loubs buy YSL too.

I believe you can trademark the use of the color and maybe patent the formula used to create the color. I don't think you would patent the use of a color -- patents have to do with how something is created, I think. Tiffany's robin-egg blue and Klein blue (used by artist Yves Klein) are two examples I can think of off-hand where the color is probably trademarked. I think Klein blue might be patented, too. The colors in the examples are pretty distinct, though. I'm not sure that Louboutin could patent the formula for that red; but maybe trademark the use of red on the soles of the shoes. (As I'm sure Tiffany's has trademarked that distinctive blue box for everything they sell.)

jone70 said:

I believe you can trademark the use of the color and maybe patent the formula used to create the color. I don't think you would patent the use of a color -- patents have to do with how something is created, I think. Tiffany's robin-egg blue and Klein blue (used by artist Yves Klein) are two examples I can think of off-hand where the color is probably trademarked. I think Klein blue might be patented, too. The colors in the examples are pretty distinct, though. I'm not sure that Louboutin could patent the formula for that red; but maybe trademark the use of red on the soles of the shoes. (As I'm sure Tiffany's has trademarked that distinctive blue box for everything they sell.)

I know you can trademark a color, I'm wondering if they DID.

^ I only saw the question in reference to "patenting" a color, no one said anything about trademark.

Not sure if they filed for trademark of the specific color, but according to this article (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110408/lf_nm_life/us_fashion_shoes_lawsuit_1):

"The Red Sole has become synonymous with Christian Louboutin and high fashion," it said, adding that Louboutin had trademarked the design in the United States in 2008.

I think I'm gonna trademark having two eyes. Wonder if it'll get me anywhere.