For Cardi B, Christian Louboutin represents a certain level of status. At 19, she got her first pair as a gift from a suitor who used to visit the New York City strip club where she worked as a dancer. In “Bodak Yellow,” the first single by a female rapper to take over the number one spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart since Lauryn Hill in 1998, Cardi raps: “These expensive, these is red bottoms, these is bloody shoes/hit the store, I can get 'em both, I don't wanna choose.”
And the Love and Hip Hop alum certainly has not had to decide which pair she can afford to leave the store with. In fact, her stylist tells Billboard: “The first time I was ever introduced to her shoe closet was in May, and at that point, she was running up on about 50 or 60 pairs and now is averaging a new pair every couple of weeks.”
“Where she’s from, when girls are ready to get dressed up that’s what you wear,” Carter added. “And in real life, ‘Bodak’ blew up, she wore red bottoms because that’s what it means to make it in the Bronx. It’s a status symbol that the masses can relate to; everyday girls work hard and save up their money to have that shoe. Cardi did the same.”
The newly-engaged 25-year-old is inspiring everyday girls to get their red bottoms so much that both Business of Fashion and Lyst are reporting searches for Christian Louboutin are up 217%. According to Racked, this is what a salesperson called the “Cardi B” effect." “[There were] lots of young women, and a more diverse crowd than the rest of the store — it seemed to me, at least,” a Forbes writer noted. How's that for influence? Not bad for just a regular, degular, shmegular girl from the Bronx, right?