Did CL lowered their quality standards?

SomePerson

Member
Aug 23, 2018
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Did Christian Louboutin lowered their quality standard for their So Kate pumps? They seems to be showing way more glue then before. All my previous CL doesn't show this much glue. You can see glue showing even along the pointed toe area of the pumps as well as other defect right out of the box.
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The sole appears to be not completely attached?
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Glue all over the place.
So again did they lower the quality standard or did I get a bad batch? I know these are genuine CL as I bought them from BG and these pumps were a pre-order pumps, so not something that could have been counterfeited yet. For a $745 shoes, I expected much better put together shoes as well as quality.
 
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Hi. Can't speak on lower quality across the board. I have 5 pairs (2 recent purchases) and they are in impeccable condition. You clearly have a defective shoe. That can, and does happen with items across all brands. Cars, jewelry, appliances, clothing, shoes, etc. Get your money back or a replacement pair. It's frustrating but there is a solution. Such a pretty shoe!!
 
I just bought this same pair and it has some less-than-stellar finishing, including some stray red lacquer kind of hanging off the soles (I ran my nail over it and it came right off with no damage, no big deal). I think the soles being edged in red instead of left natural as they often are highlights some of the unevenness, closely inspecting other pairs I have shows the same thing with glue and gaps, just less noticeable because of the color and not being next to the smoothness of paint. None of this bothered me enough to return/swap but since it's exactly the same shoe maybe there's a trend somewhere so I'll just add my notes.
 
Hi. Can't speak on lower quality across the board. I have 5 pairs (2 recent purchases) and they are in impeccable condition. You clearly have a defective shoe. That can, and does happen with items across all brands. Cars, jewelry, appliances, clothing, shoes, etc. Get your money back or a replacement pair. It's frustrating but there is a solution. Such a pretty shoe!!
I believe you're right. That brings me memories of an issue I had from another company, not relating to shoes but with electronics, however a simple swap is all it took to rectify the said issue and it has been going strong ever since. So yeah, every manufacturer does have some bad batches or a few bad apple, and more good apple that doesn't go bad so to speak. This could be just what happened here. Perhaps the employee working on the shoes were rushing to get it finished to meet the deadline or quotas for the retail stores.

That is quite disappointing. The shoes are absolutely gorgeous though, I’m swooning over the color!
Yes, it is disappointing indeed. While the shoes are very beautiful but that defect kinda takes away from the beauty I guess. So sad to see defects on shoes like these, but it happens.
In case you're interested in these shoes BG is having another batch of these shoes. You can pre-order yours if the size you need is available. The caveat is that the price went up on them. Perhaps I got a "one off" shoes that many people shouldn't receive, especially brand new.

I just bought this same pair and it has some less-than-stellar finishing, including some stray red lacquer kind of hanging off the soles (I ran my nail over it and it came right off with no damage, no big deal). I think the soles being edged in red instead of left natural as they often are highlights some of the unevenness, closely inspecting other pairs I have shows the same thing with glue and gaps, just less noticeable because of the color and not being next to the smoothness of paint. None of this bothered me enough to return/swap but since it's exactly the same shoe maybe there's a trend somewhere so I'll just add my notes.
The sole seems to be detaching... oh that's the word I should have used in my OP. I can place my fingernail in between the sole and the leather (shoe) itself and I don't think this is normal and should not be able to do that. Why it would be possible to pull on the sole. Does your sole of the shoes flexes when you apply pressure to it? The sole on mine flexes when I push on it with my finger, you could see it flex to the leather as if becoming one with the shoe, and the moment you let go, it separates and flex back to original position. I'm hoping this is simply a one off thing. If it was just too much glue issue, I supposed I could overlook that, but the detached sole (or I think it is detaching), that one bothers me. Granted the sole may not get completely detached, as it is glued on there, so maybe there is too much glue and the glue is preventing the sole from closing all the way? I don't know. It just looks weird. I guess the question I should be asking is can you place your fingernail in between your shoes and the sole without any force?
Can you post one or more high resolution picture(s) of yours shoes?
Edit:
I just realized that you mention gaps. So does that indicate that you can place your fingernail or foreign objects in between the shoes and sole?
 
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Finally found some time to show you the pics of the exchanged shoes.
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Bulging on the sole. Will people think they are not genuine?
In your opinion are these exchanged shoes any better then the previous one? The sole is not detaching like the previous one though so that is a plus. It appears more glue or the finish is less then stellar on this one, so I'm thinking it just this particular color that is experiencing this problem. Perhaps colors that has been around for a while is more impeccable or those workers are being rushed to produce those red shoes.
Also the shoes while they both says the same size, however when placing them together one of them appears to be smaller then the other, which I find weird as all my other Loubs to be close in sizes to each other. Somehow they fit the same though regardless of actual sizes of said shoes.
 
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Finally found some time to show you the pics of the exchanged shoes.
20f4utl.jpg

2dirdd1.jpg

Bulging on the sole. Will people think they are not genuine?
In your opinion are these exchanged shoes any better then the previous one? The sole is not detaching like the previous one though so that is a plus. It appears more glue or the finish is less then stellar on this one, so I'm thinking it just this particular color that is experiencing this problem. Perhaps colors that has been around for a while is more impeccable or those workers are being rushed to produce those red shoes.
Also the shoes while they both says the same size, however when placing them together one of them appears to be smaller then the other, which I find weird as all my other Loubs to be close in sizes to each other. Somehow they fit the same though regardless of actual sizes of said shoes.
You’re definitely not the only one because my brand new so full Kate’s have a length issue by a few millimeters and the leather on one of the heel is different than the other. I think the quality of Louboutin has decreased while the prices have increased. It’s a shame because they are beautiful shoes. I contacted Louboutin, they said they can send out some leather materials for me to take to a cobbler and sent me a repair form and indicated that I needed to send them photos of the shoes in question. I went ahead and took photos, filled out a repair form, sent them photos and the form as they wanted and they came back with “oh well it’s not a defect, deal with it”. I purchased these from Neiman Marcus and they were shipped out to me from another store across the country since they only had one pair left in my size. This is the second pair of the same shoe I had to exchange because the first pair I ordered came with a bent heel! Totally unsatisfactory since they cost me $2000!!!! I have attached photos. As you can see, one heel is a smooth leather while the other heel is a harsh grainy texture that you can actually feel. I’m not sure what to do since Louboutin won’t help and NM is completely sold out in my size.
 

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You’re definitely not the only one because my brand new so full Kate’s have a length issue by a few millimeters and the leather on one of the heel is different than the other. I think the quality of Louboutin has decreased while the prices have increased. It’s a shame because they are beautiful shoes. I contacted Louboutin, they said they can send out some leather materials for me to take to a cobbler and sent me a repair form and indicated that I needed to send them photos of the shoes in question. I went ahead and took photos, filled out a repair form, sent them photos and the form as they wanted and they came back with “oh well it’s not a defect, deal with it”. I purchased these from Neiman Marcus and they were shipped out to me from another store across the country since they only had one pair left in my size. This is the second pair of the same shoe I had to exchange because the first pair I ordered came with a bent heel! Totally unsatisfactory since they cost me $2000!!!! I have attached photos. As you can see, one heel is a smooth leather while the other heel is a harsh grainy texture that you can actually feel. I’m not sure what to do since Louboutin won’t help and NM is completely sold out in my size.

Oh wow, yes, perhaps I am correct that the CL is lowering their quality standard. A shame indeed. If I had to haphazard a guess with the leather situation, if they used full grain leather, then it is possible that the grain will not be uniform because different parts of that particular animal skin would be slightly different. I'm thinking they are using split leather, which is most likely, they could have sanded down the grain down too far? Another possible scenario is, perhaps they ran out of usable leather on one sheet and went with another sheet of leather for the other shoe to complete a pair. So let's just say they completed the left shoe with sheet A and then completed the right shoe with sheet B, which in turns two separate sheets to complete a pair. I'm wondering if they did used a second sheet just for the heels? That could explain the uneven grain. Yes, Paying for a large sum of money, one should expect a careful examination of the completed product and give a pass/fail before sending it away to buyers. I understand a little imperfection since being hand made, but something like this shouldn't have passed the QC or QA especially the bent heel, ouch how are you even supposed to walk in them with bent heels? I cannot recall Jimmy Choo being this bad. It sounds like they may be making up excuses or just bluntly saying no defect you're SOL, because they have your money and don't care (that maybe an exaggeration). Actually most manufacturers does this to some extent. I agree that they do make beautiful shoes and the red sole seems to get me suckered into buying them. Regardless of their antics.
If you want to look at it this way, think of them defect as giving those shoes character straight from the manufacturer. I don't know if it will help or not. I would go ahead and keep them, since they are sold out of your size. They may never have them in stock again, especially those limited edition ones. It is better to have them then it is not having them and not be able to get them in the future and saves you from having to rely on second hand market.
 
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Oh wow, yes, perhaps I am correct that the CL is lowering their quality standard. A shame indeed. If I had to haphazard a guess with the leather situation, if they used full grain leather, then it is possible that the grain will not be uniform because different parts of that particular animal skin would be slightly different. I'm thinking they are using split leather, which is most likely, they could have sanded down the grain down too far? Another possible scenario is, perhaps they ran out of usable leather on one sheet and went with another sheet of leather for the other shoe to complete a pair. So let's just say they completed the left shoe with sheet A and then completed the right shoe with sheet B, which in turns two separate sheets to complete a pair. I'm wondering if they did used a second sheet just for the heels? That could explain the uneven grain. Yes, Paying for a large sum of money, one should expect a careful examination of the completed product and give a pass/fail before sending it away to buyers. I understand a little imperfection since being hand made, but something like this shouldn't have passed the QC or QA especially the bent heel, ouch how are you even supposed to walk in them with bent heels? I cannot recall Jimmy Choo being this bad. It sounds like they may be making up excuses or just bluntly saying no defect you're SOL, because they have your money and don't care (that maybe an exaggeration). Actually most manufacturers does this to some extent. I agree that they do make beautiful shoes and the red sole seems to get me suckered into buying them. Regardless of their antics.
If you want to look at it this way, think of them defect as giving those shoes character straight from the manufacturer. I don't know if it will help or not. I would go ahead and keep them, since they are sold out of your size. They may never have them in stock again, especially those limited edition ones. It is better to have them then it is not having them and not be able to get them in the future and saves you from having to rely on second hand market.
You’re definitely correct. I just checked Neiman Marcus’ website and I see that they have one pair left in my size. They didn’t have it yesterday so I’m assuming it is a return. I’m so tempted to do an exchange but I’m afraid that the exchange might be worse than the pair I already have. It seems to me that it is a gamble with louboutins. If I do an exchange, this will be my 4th time because stupid me, I listened to the sizing suggestion mentioned on the Louboutin website where it states to take a half size larger than your normal size... so like a dummy, I did and when they arrived they were too big. I ended up doing an exchange for my normal size and it arrived with a bent heel and uneven stitching where it was too noticeable it also had a crack on one of the studs sice they used plastic this time around. So again because they are an expensive pair, I exchanged them yet again and this time the leather isn’t even the same. I’m done buying Louboutin without fully inspecting and examining them from heel to toe here on out. The quality has turned to crap. And it’s just not worth the hassle anymore. Like you said, the red sole gets me every time. It’s just a shame that “legally” per Louboutin customer service, they aren’t able to fix or exchange because I didn’t buy it from them. The only reason why I purchased them from Neiman Marcus in the first place is because they repair your shoes for the life of the shoe and you can return anytime as long as it hasn’t been worn. The Louboutin boutique on the other hand won’t let you return unless it’s within 14 days of purchase. You can’t even try the shoes on because one little scratch on the sole (red lacquer still intact) and they’re no longer eligible for a return. They won’t even repair a shoe if something happens. You have to go to their “trusted” repair shops and pay for your own repairs. It’s ridiculous.
 
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You’re definitely correct. I just checked Neiman Marcus’ website and I see that they have one pair left in my size. They didn’t have it yesterday so I’m assuming it is a return. I’m so tempted to do an exchange but I’m afraid that the exchange might be worse than the pair I already have. It seems to me that it is a gamble with louboutins. If I do an exchange, this will be my 4th time because stupid me, I listened to the sizing suggestion mentioned on the Louboutin website where it states to take a half size larger than your normal size... so like a dummy, I did and when they arrived they were too big. I ended up doing an exchange for my normal size and it arrived with a bent heel and uneven stitching where it was too noticeable it also had a crack on one of the studs sice they used plastic this time around. So again because they are an expensive pair, I exchanged them yet again and this time the leather isn’t even the same. I’m done buying Louboutin without fully inspecting and examining them from heel to toe here on out. The quality has turned to crap. And it’s just not worth the hassle anymore. Like you said, the red sole gets me every time. It’s just a shame that “legally” per Louboutin customer service, they aren’t able to fix or exchange because I didn’t buy it from them. The only reason why I purchased them from Neiman Marcus in the first place is because they repair your shoes for the life of the shoe and you can return anytime as long as it hasn’t been worn. The Louboutin boutique on the other hand won’t let you return unless it’s within 14 days of purchase. You can’t even try the shoes on because one little scratch on the sole (red lacquer still intact) and they’re no longer eligible for a return. They won’t even repair a shoe if something happens. You have to go to their “trusted” repair shops and pay for your own repairs. It’s ridiculous.
Everybody foot are different, I usually have to go a full size up instead of a half size. Why I have one pair of So Kate sitting in the closet due to being a half size small. Don't feel stupid, I did my mistake too and I believe everybody makes mistakes, this is how we learn. After examining your pics several time, especially the second one, it appears to me that they ran out of the usable leather that they were using to complete that pair of shoes, and they grabbed another sheet and use that sheet to wrapped the heel on the left shoe. Reason I have this hypothesis is due to the right shoe heels matches the grains on the rest of the shoe and perhaps they were using the same sheet to for the left shoe only to have run out when getting to the heel. I do not blame you for wanting to inspect the shoes beforehand. Sadly for me I do not have that option as their are no boutique near me.
Say since Neiman Marcus and bergdorf goodman are the same, I wander if that repair policy extends to me?
 
Very true and it could well be that they did run out of leather but in all honesty, it just doesn’t seem right to do that to their customers. Their quality control should be better. I believe that BG has the same policy as NM since they are the same company. You should chat with customer service to make sure.
 
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Very true and it could well be that they did run out of leather but in all honesty, it just doesn’t seem right to do that to their customers. Their quality control should be better. I believe that BG has the same policy as NM since they are the same company. You should chat with customer service to make sure.
I agree with you 100% on this.
That is a good idea, I'll have to give them a chat, thank you for your suggestion.
 
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Yesterday I purchased a pair of Pigalle Follies 85 in black patent from Neiman’s and admittedly I was a bit overly excited in the store so I didn’t check them out as good as I should have while I was there. When I look at the bottom of the shoe the red lacquer is very cracked up. It’s not peeling or anything like that but there are tons of visible cracks on the bottom of the footbed. I do intend to have them slap a set of Vibram’s on them so perhaps not a huge deal but none of my others have this. Should I be concerned?

Another tiny gripe I have is that the stamp on the under side is not especially visible. Not a huge deal but a slight disappointment that it was sort of half-arsed.
 
Yesterday I purchased a pair of Pigalle Follies 85 in black patent from Neiman’s and admittedly I was a bit overly excited in the store so I didn’t check them out as good as I should have while I was there. When I look at the bottom of the shoe the red lacquer is very cracked up. It’s not peeling or anything like that but there are tons of visible cracks on the bottom of the footbed. I do intend to have them slap a set of Vibram’s on them so perhaps not a huge deal but none of my others have this. Should I be concerned?

Another tiny gripe I have is that the stamp on the under side is not especially visible. Not a huge deal but a slight disappointment that it was sort of half-arsed.
Exchange them! I don’t know what’s going on but I think Neiman Marcus is getting the defective pairs of louboutins these days.
 
Yesterday I purchased a pair of Pigalle Follies 85 in black patent from Neiman’s and admittedly I was a bit overly excited in the store so I didn’t check them out as good as I should have while I was there. When I look at the bottom of the shoe the red lacquer is very cracked up. It’s not peeling or anything like that but there are tons of visible cracks on the bottom of the footbed. I do intend to have them slap a set of Vibram’s on them so perhaps not a huge deal but none of my others have this. Should I be concerned?

Another tiny gripe I have is that the stamp on the under side is not especially visible. Not a huge deal but a slight disappointment that it was sort of half-arsed.
I think I'd be more concerned if the leather itself is cracking under the lacquer and may not be visible. The caveats is you won't know until you take off the lacquer or the cobbler tells you otherwise. If it just the lacquer itself, then it should be fine and you will wear it off even if you don't take it to the cobbler to get the Vibram sole put on. That is pretty risky assessment though, it could go both ways. I am wondering if the leather itself is cracking and is showing through the lacquer?
As for the stamping, I think it does varies from Loubs to Loubs. They maybe getting lazier though.
EDIT:
It is known that sometimes on counterfeit version, the stamping isn't visible or barely visible, so could it be that the shoe in question you bought was a returned and instead of returning the original shoe, that person returned the counterfeit version in it's place?

Exchange them! I don’t know what’s going on but I think Neiman Marcus is getting the defective pairs of louboutins these days.
You might be on to something here, it does seem like they are selling rejected Louboutins. Perhaps they are getting a big discount direct from CL and then charging the costumer full price without passing on the savings to their costumer? It does sound far-fetch, but perhaps it isn't.
btw, I like your message in your profile.
 
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