Jimmy Choo founder Tamara Mellon hopes to open up to 50 stores in China over the next five years in what she dubbed an “exciting” market for high-end goods.

China is the world’s fastest-growing market for luxury products and an ongoing economic boom is creating new billionaires every year in a huge explosion in wealth.

Jimmy Choo currently has just two shops in China — one in Beijing and another in Shanghai. A third will open at the end of the year in the eastern city of Nanjing.

Christian Louboutin has been selling 25 pairs, costing hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars, in his first-ever men’s store in Paris that opened in August.

Apparently, the more lavish models are most popular, with Louboutin saying that his male customers “come in and they say, ‘What do you have with studs?’”

And that his studded high-top sneakers ($993) and a more elaborate version with crystals ($2,278) belong to his bestsellers.

A fight by Christian Louboutin for the exclusive right to put red soles on shoes got kicked out of court Wednesday in a victory for rival Yves Saint Laurent.

The legal battle in a New York court pitted two fashion leaders in a bitter contest for what Louboutin said was the soul of its extravagantly expensive shoes — the signature scarlet outsole.

In federal court, US District Judge Victor Marrero ruled that Louboutin — even if widely recognized for its trailblazing use of red under the shoe — could not stop competitors like YSL from doing the same thing.

Famed footwear brand Christian Louboutin and photographer Peter Lippman have teamed up again to create Louboutin’s Fall 2011 lookbook.

The seven images are reenactments of iconic 15th century Renaissance portraits with the incorporation of Christian Louboutin shoes from the Fall 2011 colletion.

Each shot celebrates ‘the power of femininity’, embodying the spirit of the Christian Louboutin woman through various historic figures.

French footwear star Christian Louboutin has filed suit against rival Yves Saint-Laurent in New York, alleging a deceitful use of red soles on YSL‘s women’s shoes.

The million-dollar suit for “trademark infringement, unfair competition and false designation of origin” filed on Thursday in Manhattan claims Louboutin was the first to come up with the idea of a scarlet sole on its luxury heels.

Louboutin — whose glam footwear was a focus of conversation on the TV series “Sex and the City” — charges that YSL’s use of red soles amounts to deception.

Crystal Renn is the new face of Jimmy Choo, replacing Amber Valletta in this colourful block colour campaign, photographed by Inez & Vinoodh.