Longtime Friends Diane von Furstenberg and Priyanka Chopra Honor Christian Louboutin at the Museum at FIT’s Couture Council Luncheon

Just like the sound his shoes make down a marble floor, things were clicking for Christian Louboutin at this year’s Couture Council luncheon, hosted by the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

In picking a designer to honor, Dr. Valerie Steele explained she was looking for someone whose work aligned with the museum’s upcoming show (opening this evening at the Seventh Avenue museum), Paris, Capital of Fashion. Steele, who has contributed great scholarship on the subject with her much-referenced book, Paris Fashion: A Cultural History, seemed to have found the perfect man. Not only does Louboutin drip with Francophile sensibilities (the correct pronunciation of his name being somewhat elusive on this side of the Atlantic), but his designs are well-represented in the MFIT’s holdings and they also make an appearance in the upcoming museum show.

“The Couture Council advisory committee and I really believe that his shoes are a really important part of French fashion,” explained Steele. “So we asked and he said yes!” (Her excitement is all the more understandable given how rarely Mr. Louboutin is in New York.)

“It’s only my second time at Lincoln Center!” the shoe designer later revealed. “The first time was for the opera, but I’m so happy to be here; I’ve just come back from five weeks of being in Havaianas and shorts.” Rejuvenated from his time off, Louboutin was in fine form—the crowd would witness this later on during his highly amusing acceptance speech.

Hosted with Nordstrom (which opened as a shoe store in Seattle many moons ago, as Jamie Nordstrom would tell the crowd), the event also celebrated 50 years of the Museum at FIT, of which Steele is the director and chief curator. Modern-day ladies who lunch (many taking time out of their workdays) dressed to impress for the occasion and most turned up in shoes with red-painted soles—which really had less to do with Louboutin being the luncheon’s honoree and more to do with the fact that his shoes are just that popular. “We don’t really need a show of hands, or feet for this matter, to see how many of you are in your Louboutins,” said Dr. Joyce F. Brown to guests like Diane von Furstenberg, Priyanka Chopra, Vogue’s Hamish Bowles, and Martha Stewart.

Between courses of roasted tomato salad and lobster tail, guests patted their lips with napkins colored the exact Pantone of Louboutin red—the color was splashed all over the atrium at the Lincoln Center theater. After a screening of a video touting “New York’s most fashionable museum,” a certain superstar took to the stage to award Louboutin with his Couture Council Award, which is sweetly shaped like a spool of thread.

“Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world,” announced Chopra, quoting Marilyn Monroe’s famous words. She continued to recall the pair of shoes she had specially made by Louboutin for her wedding to Nick Jonas. “I was recently married, you might have heard about that,” she quipped, “I tried to keep it a secret but that didn’t go so well.”