Prior to the Challengers press tour, Zendaya received a trunk full of Christian Louboutin’s So Kate pumps. Forty pairs, to be precise. The star’s stylist Law Roach struck up a friendship with the shoemaker after the self-professed image architect basically molded his once-14-year-old client’s foot to the staggeringly high soles, and it’s been a happy marriage of superstars and stilettos since.
The story goes like this: When the young Disney star enlisted the help of Roach to select outfits for important popstrel events, like Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never premiere, Law saw an opportunity: to “come up with a plan to help an amazing girl show the world what I saw in Zendaya.” Central to his “blueprint”—naturally—were excellent shoes, but when the bright young thing first did a full day of press in her 120mm tall So Kates, she was hobbling to the finish line.
“You will not take these shoes off,” said Roach at the time, according to the Cutting Floor podcast. “She kept them on, and the next day she put them on again, and the next day she put them on again, so it kind of became our thing, and now her feet are just kind of trained—she can wear ’em all day, she could dance in ’em, she could kick her legs up, she can run downstairs.” In 2024, when brands offer to send Zendaya shoes for the red carpet, Roach’s response is that she only wears So Kates. She has, after all, got more than 40 fresh pairs in reserve.
Roach’s choice to pick one of the most versatile—albeit the most painful—shoes as his client’s signature back in the 2010s was a smart one. These Louboutins have certified cool-girl history. Born in 2012, the So Kate design was inspired by the classic yet impossible to distil style of Christian’s friend Kate Moss. “Kate has a sharp style – simple and very complex at the same time,” he told Vogue of his model muse. With fiery red lacquered soles and a subtle pinch of toe cleavage, the pump, like its namesake, was according to Mr. Louboutin, “born to turn heads.”
Rather than packing the same kind of punch as say, Loewe’s balloon heels or McQueen’s horse-shoe boots, the So Kate has formed a blank canvas for Zendaya’s chameleonic style over the years. She was the first actor of her generation to delve into the method-dressing trend, and has since out-referenced everyone with her ’90s Mugler gynoid suits (the Dune: Part 2 promo tour was one for the books), tennis ball Celia Kritharioti couture (yep, you guessed it: Challengers), and modern-day Juliet looks while watching her own Romeo, Tom Holland, perform in the West End. There might not have been literal leg kicking, but Zendaya has been metaphorically high-kicking her way up the fashion leaderboard thanks to her failsafe footwear that miraculously works with everything.
There has, asserts Roach, been “no pay for play”, no sponsorship, no calculated endorsement. Almost a decade on, the shoe still fits and no other brand has swayed her out of that patent calfskin. With major fashion contracts—from the likes of Valentino to Louis Vuitton—snapping up Zendaya in recent years, this is no mean feat. In fact, it’s verging on impossible to hold your own when the conglomerates come calling. Perhaps those So Kates – inspired by an icon for an icon in the making—do make you walk a little taller.