Little known fact: French shoe designer Christian Louboutin, the man behind the famed red-bottomed heels, is half-Egyptian.

The fashion icon himself had no idea until 2013, when he discovered that his mother had an affair with an Egyptian man in the 1960s!

It sounds like the stuff of fiction, but his passion for Egypt all suddenly made sense…

And now, he’s being honored for all his hard work in preserving Egyptian cultural heritage

In recognition of Louboutin’s commitment to protecting cultural heritage, the World Monuments Fund, an organisation that supports initiatives to safeguard historic structures and monuments around the globe, has named the designer of the renowned red bottom shoes a recipient.

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For his extraordinary contributions to the funding of the Colossi of Memnon project in Luxor, which saw the excavation of 113 sculptures of the goddess Sekhmet and numerous old columns, the French fashion giant will receive the Hadrian Award.

Prior to being honoured at the 33rd Hadrian Gala on October 22, during the World Monuments Summit, Louboutin will take part in a talk on Egypt where he will continue to express his deep admiration for the nation and highlight the numerous significant ways it has impacted the world.

The designer has had a deep love for Egyptian culture and architecture since he was young. He frequently pursued this love and visited Egypt whenever he could, even buying a property on the Left Bank of the Nile in the early 2000s.

The designer said that when his sister revealed that his biological father was Egyptian, he wasn’t exactly. He’s spoken about his childhood as a foresight into the idea that his heritage was “ingrained in [him] already.”