Jaden Smith is many things: actor, musician, activist – and since September 2025 also Men’s Creative Director at Christian Louboutin. During Paris Fashion Week Men’s, the eldest son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith presented his first collection for the French luxury house in the form of an immersive exhibition, somewhere between hip-hop and Greek mythology .
From actor to creative director
Many people know the boy wonder Jaden Smith from his early role alongside Will Smith in the drama “The Pursuit of Happyness“ (2006) or from headlines about the vegan food truck “I Love You Restaurant“, with which he distributed free meals to the homeless. Now the 27-year-old is opening a new chapter.
Since September 2025, Smith has officially been the first Men’s Creative Director at Christian Louboutin. The rapper presented his debut on January 21 during Paris Fashion Week Men’s. But anyone expecting a classic runway show was in for a surprise.
Fashionable room installation instead of catwalk
Instead, visitors were treated to an immersive exhibition including a 360° video installation with vintage television screens in a disused warehouse in the Parisian artists’ quarter of Montparnasse. The name of the location refers to Mount Parnassus, home to the nine muses of the arts and sciences in Greek mythology. So it is no wonder that two of the most striking designs bear names inspired by ancient Greece. The Plato Loafer, originally a 2017 model with striking perforations, is reinterpreted by Smith – including the Neo-CL signature on a silver coin.The Asclepius Sling, named after the god of healing, picks up on the coin motif and combines it with metallic hardware.
The exhibition was conceived as a sequence of different rooms and merged fashion, film, music and history. References to early film and photography pioneers such as Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre and the Lumière brothers clearly ran through the staging in the Projection Room, the first room in which the characteristic red of the Maison took center stage.
Smith and Christian Louboutin met back in 2019 during Paris Fashion Week. Years of sporadic exchanges followed until Louboutin was finally convinced by Smith’s “complex, multidimensional understanding of aesthetics and references”.
A symbol of this relationship can also be found in the exhibition: an angel sculpture from Louboutin’s personal collection, which appeared during their first shoot together.
Past meets future
In terms of content, Smith says he moves between the past and the future. This becomes particularly clear with the Trapman Corner: a reinterpretation of the classic Louboutin silhouette through the prism of 1990s hip-hop culture. This is no coincidence, as this is at the heart of the design philosophy with which he creates formal wear for the men of the future, according to the creative mind.
In addition, models such as the Corteo – first introduced in 2019 – are a symbol of classic elegance. For Smith, it embodies the “businessman, the working man, people who build something with discipline”.
Fashion fans praise the clear lines, wearable classics and the courage for conceptual depth.
Smith thus joins a new generation of prominent creative directors: Travis Scott at Oakley, A$AP Rocky at Ray-Ban, Pharrell Williams at Louis Vuitton, Central Cee at the BAPE x SYNA World capsule and SZA at Vans are other musicians who are now shaping the design tops of major brands. There is a reason why these talents are conquering the fashion world: with their unmistakable aesthetics, their cultural flair and their authenticity, they not only influence collections, but also shape the brand image and appeal to new target groups that are hardly reached by traditional communication. We are excited to see how this emerging creative elite will shape the fashion world.
Store Smith’s Men’s Avant-Première capsul here or in selected boutiques.
Images: © Louboutin
