Worldwise: Famed French Fashion Designer Christian Louboutin’s Favourite Things
3 min
As the founder of an eponymous fashion brand that counts legions of women and celebrities as ardent fans, Christian Louboutin has amassed a following that has garnered him fame in his own right. Most known for his stilettos with their unmistakable red-lacquered soles—the accessory that gave him his start—the Paris-born designer has since expanded beyond footwear with handbags, fragrances, makeup, and shoes for men.
Now comes a new venture all together: this April, Louboutin, 60, will open Vermelho Melides, a 13-room hotel in Melides, a small town in Portugal’s Alentejo region. It’s a rural, unspoiled destination of pine forests, rice lagoons, and beaches where he owns a restored former fisherman’s shack and visits every chance he gets.
Named after the Portuguese word for red, Vermelho Melides is meant to evoke the feeling of a friend’s home more than a hotel and features a litany of colors, materials, and styles from various eras. Art plays into the design, too, while dining and imbibing will unfold at XTian, a restaurant offering upscale Portuguese cuisine.
Louboutin, who was expelled from school three times and began designing shoes when he was a teenager, spoke to Penta about his favorite things from Rio de Janeiro, where he was attending Carnival and also has a home.
I first discovered Portugal… as a teenager on a backpacking trip. I traveled to Lisbon and Porto and instantly loved both. I went again eight years later—this time to Comporta, a small town about an hour south of Lisbon. It was idyllic and had the most beautiful stretch of beach. I didn’t visit again until almost a decade later. I had already started my company, and my friend, the designer Jacques Grange, invited me to stay with him at his home there. I ended up visiting for the next two summers and eventually bought a home in Comporta and then Melides.
My ideal day in Melides… begins by waking up at 7 a.m., going for a jog and jumping into the ocean for a swim. Then it’s breakfast with my friends and family. The rest of the day is very relaxed. I have a beautiful garden and might spend a few hours tending to my flowers and vegetables. Or it’s reading, sketching my next round of shoe designs, and visiting local markets. But really, being in Melides is about not doing much. In the evening, it’s a long dinner with friends at home or at a local restaurant.
A favourite souvenir from Melides is… a ceramic piece from the store Vida Dura in town. Everything is handmade in Portugal, and the owner has a fantastic eye for great finds. The dinnerware, jugs, glasses, and more are colourful and will remind you of your trip.
My most memorable hotel stay… was at Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur, India, in the Maharani suite. It’s a sprawling palace and gorgeous with Art Deco decor. My bed was huge, and so was the bathroom. More recently, it’s the Le Grand Controle on the grounds of Versailles. I went for Valentine’s Day with my boyfriend, and the property transported us to the world of French royalty. Alain Ducasse is behind the cuisine, and we had the most decadent multi-course with lots of French wine.
The destination on my bucket list is… the Azores Islands in Portugal. The architecture looks stunning, and it’s very much about appreciating nature like Melides. I want to visit Tasmania for the same reason.
My go-to vacation destination is… Bhutan. I visit every year. It’s a very spiritual place and again, nature dominates. I also love hiking, and the country has incredibly scenic hikes.
The shoes I wear for sightseeing are… loafers or flip-flops. I find them to be comfortable and easy to take on and off. Never sneakers, which I wear only when I’m running.
My travel essentials are… a great book and auction catalogs from Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Bonhams—they’re my secret vice.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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From making unpopular decisions to learning when to listen, leaders from five businesses reveal what nobody prepared them for — and how running a company has challenged their expectations.
Technology and semiconductor shares fell sharply as investors questioned the debt financing the AI infrastructure boom and confronted higher rates and Chinese competition.
Elon Musk is exploring a potential merger between Tesla and SpaceX, a deal that could reshape the future of AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles and space technology. With a combined valuation potentially reaching $3.5 trillion, the move could bring Musk’s vision of an interconnected technology ecosystem closer to reality, although a deal remains uncertain.
5 min
Elon Musk has engineered ties between Tesla TSLA 3.41%increase; up pointing triangle and SpaceX SPCX 7.79%increase; up pointing triangle that are hard to break, and now he wants to fuse them together permanently.
Musk has run both Tesla and SpaceX concurrently over the past two decades, using a schedule that dictated which days he spent focused on each business.
The companies have often shared resources and personnel, signaling their close ties. Last year, SpaceX looked into creating a spacesuit for Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, a person familiar with the matter said. Tesla last week showed off its new Roadster, a vehicle featuring SpaceX rocket thrusters that it hopes to soon bring to market.
And in recent months, Musk has repositioned both companies by expanding beyond their core operations toward a shared mission centered on artificial intelligence.
The world’s richest man on Tuesday signaled his interest in tying up SpaceX and Tesla, marking what would be the biggest corporate merger of all time. Because he serves as chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk said committees of independent directors at both companies are evaluating a possible deal, adding that a transaction might not come to fruition.
The committees will likely evaluate, with lawyers and bankers, how each company would fare in a potential deal and how a deal might best be structured. They then present their conclusions to their respective boards, who typically vote on whether to proceed.
“It’s an odd Kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can’t be in the conversation,” Musk told SpaceX investors on Tuesday in response to an analyst’s question about a potential deal.
For Musk, the merger supports his vision of a world full of autonomous cars, humanoid robots and weekly rocket launches, as well as the data centers and satellites required to keep the whole thing running.
Some investors and analysts said they expect a transaction would be structured as an all-stock deal, with SpaceX potentially paying a modest premium for Tesla shares.
SpaceX, which has a market value of about $2 trillion, said it is seeing sharp growth in revenue across its businesses, which include operating data centers, launching rockets and operating satellite networks such as the internet service Starlink. Tesla is valued at about $1.5 trillion and is expanding its operations beyond its automotive and energy business. Shares in both companies traded higher following the news Tuesday.
Musk’s substantial ownership stakes in both companies, along with voting control at SpaceX, has enabled him to set the deal in motion. Analysts and investors said the deal will probably face regulatory scrutiny internationally, though some see Musk’s close relationship with the Trump administration as an asset to getting approval.
Blurred lines
The companies haven’t said which directors are on the special committees evaluating a potential deal. Several SpaceX and Tesla board members have either personal or business ties to Musk. And like Musk, venture capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis sits on both boards.
In a filing this week, Tesla outlined millions of dollars in business agreements with SpaceX and its subsidiaries last year, including $143 million in car sales to SpaceX, $3.3 million in advertising that it bought on the social-media platform X and $430 million in revenue from the sale of Megapack batteries for SpaceX’s data centers.
The companies also split the cost of resources including the use of Musk’s SpaceX jet and the bill for his personal security, which he runs through a private company.
Employees at both companies routinely move between companies to work on special projects, and some executives have dual roles, including Charles Kuehmann, vice president of materials engineering at both SpaceX and Tesla, and Ashok Elluswamy, the vice president of AI software at Tesla who runs a joint venture with SpaceX called Digital Optimus.
Over the years, Musk has launched new startups within his empire, including brain-implant company Neuralink, underground-tunnel developer the Boring Company and xAI, the AI startup that merged with SpaceX in February.
It is that AI business that Musk thinks can serve a market worth tens of trillions of dollars, justifying the need for a merger.
The business case goes like this: Tesla is developing robotaxis and robots, which it calls “physical AI.” SpaceX is working on the back end of physical AI: the data-center capacity and internet connection required for those robotaxis and robots to operate continuously.
“I don’t see what the value of Tesla is if it’s not merged with SpaceX,” said investment adviser Ross Gerber, a former Tesla bull turned critic invested in both companies. “If they don’t merge, the brains of everything that runs Tesla is owned by another company.”
On top of it all, both companies face constraints on the supply chains they need to make this world a reality, particularly when it comes to chips. To address this, Musk earlier this year announced a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and Intel to design and manufacture chips in Texas. “The most epic chip-building exercise by far,” he has said.
Musk at the wheel
For Musk, a merger would also solve two problems: demands on his attention and his lack of control at Tesla.
Tesla for years was Musk’s only public company, a status that came with greater scrutiny. There, Musk reports to a public board, as well as individual investors who make up around 30% of Tesla’s voting power, according to FactSet.
The question of Musk’s attention became a particular focus for investors and the board in recent years after he acquired Twitter in 2022 and launched xAI in 2023, and again in 2025 as he spent time in Washington, D.C., running the Department of Government Efficiency in the early months of President Trump’s second term.
As Tesla’s car business suffered in 2025, Musk threatened to take his AI ambitions outside the company if he wasn’t granted 25% voting control. Last November, Tesla shareholders approved a new pay package for Musk, which created a path for him to vastly expand his stake.
As of Sept. 30, Musk owned a roughly 20% stake in Tesla, according to the company’s proxy filing.
The SpaceX IPO gave Musk a different path. When SpaceX went public in June, the deal’s structure enabled him to have more than 80% voting power at the company—so much that he can’t be fired and decisions can’t be made without his support.
If SpaceX acquires Tesla, he will likely stay in control.
Porsche has revealed a one-off 911 GT2 RS that brings the extraordinary silhouette of its 935/78 “Moby Dick” racing car onto the road. Created by Porsche Sonderwunsch with Manthey, the commission began with a near-new GT2 RS. The owner requested greater performance, a Slantnose profile and a rear wing influenced by the limited 911 GT3 …
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In the remote waters of Indonesia’s Anambas Islands, Bawah Reserve is redefining what it means to blend barefoot luxury with environmental stewardship.
