Madonna is a feminist and has been doing more for the cause than all the grumpy feminists, who are giving nothing back by being grumpy.

I wanted to be a shoe designer, but I never thought it could be a profession. But what was the alternative? Doctor? Too dirty! Air-hostess? Maybe not! Then someone gave me a book on Roger Vivier, and, cheri, instantly I knew that was it!

The core of my work is dedicated not to pleasing women, but to pleasing men. Men are like bulls. They cannot resist the red sole.

Designing my shoes, I'm thinking timeless. Not trendy.

I prefer buying things and figuring out where to put them later than regretting not buying them.

I like to see people who are survivors wearing my shoes. I am fascinated by people who can bounce back.

I never was interested in being part of the fashion world - I just wanted to design shoes. I didn't even know 'Vogue' existed when I was growing up. 'Vogue,' what is that?'

I mean, the shoe - there is a music to it, there is attitude, there is sound, it's a movement. Clothes - it's a different story. There are a million things I'd rather do before designing clothes: directing, landscaping.

Sometimes women feel uncomfortable when men stare at them when they try on shoes.

I'll do shoes for the lady who lunches, but it would be, like, a really nasty lunch, talking about men. But where I draw the line, what I absolutely won't do, is the lady who plays bridge in the afternoon!

A good pump is a silhouette, like the bone structure of the face. It's like a beautiful face with no make-up. You can cover a not-so-beautiful face with make-up, but it is just a mask - it is the same with shoes.

Everyone has their dates. For me, it's 1991. I can place every memory of my life either before or after this date. It's the year I became an adult. My mother died, and I created my company shortly thereafter.

The heel is engineering in itself. This little thing that supports the human weight has to have a precise balance.

Funnily enough, the most difficult style to do is the plain pump because it needs to look good on a variety of feet.

Boredom is a concept that I don't understand.

I am interested in all things that celebrate and enhance the female form.

I sketch literally all the time; constructing a collection is like building a family - you have to have a certain balance. I isolate myself - I need to be concentrated for this so I leave Paris, I leave to a place without a phone.

I don't like conflicts. I'm not a competitive person at heart. To be in the middle of turmoil is boring.

I like my customer to be fierce.

The highest heels I do are six-inch heels - but mostly only dancers can wear them, since they are used to being on point in ballet shoes.

People tend to fear the ghosts in their own family. You feel these family curses and think, 'If it happened to my father, it could happen to me.'

I like Adele, Mika, Natacha Atlas and a beautiful old record, 'An Evening with Belafonte/Mouskouri,' starring Harry Belafonte and Nana Mouskouri. What they have in common is they all have incredible voices. I am very much into voices. I would say I'm a fan of voices, not of sound. I'm a fan of singers, not of bands.

I'd already decided I wanted to design shoes after I saw a sign in the Museum of African and Oceanic Art forbidding high heels. Well, who could resist?

I guess being French, I love Hollywood. I love Hollywood movies. Joseph Mankiewicz's 'All About Eve.' 'Mildred Pierce.'

You know, I'm behind my company. My company has been a big part of my life. And it's not that I been buying a company or that my father bought a company and tried to do something out of it. You know, it's not the same thing. It's my name, it's my company, it's my signature.

People say I am the king of painful shoes. I don't want to create painful shoes, but it is not my job to create something comfortable. I try to make high heels as comfortable as they can be, but my priority is design, beauty and sexiness. I'm not against them, but comfort is not my focus.

The shoe is very much an X-ray of social comportment.

I am very bad at drawing. Seriously. I can draw shoes. That's about it.

My job is designing shoes. It's work that happens behind the scenes, as they say, and that suits me just fine because in general I am a shy person. But sometimes I have these extroverted outbursts.

One moves more slowly in heels. Walking fast is neither sexy nor engaging. Nobody notices the people who race around. If you're walking in heels, you've got time. It's much more attractive.

I perfectly understand the obsession with shoes. I myself am pretty obsessed. I have a few hundred pairs of shoes in general, because I've been collecting shoes for a long time.

Necessity creates everything in my life.

If I'm in Italy, I'm going to have a cappuccino and two small brioches and then a mix of orange and grapefruit. I don't drink tea in Italy.

No woman wants to have fat ankles.

My relationship with shoes has always been linked to shoes, women, women in their shoes and performance.

If you're passionate about the world, and if you really look closely at everything around you, each thing can be transformed into a shoe, or into a part of a shoe.

Fashion isn't interesting when it comes from an uninspired place. It's like voodoo; we don't want things that are soaked in blood, sweat, and tears. I adore life, and I'm very easygoing - and it shows in my work.

There is a heel that is too high to walk in, certainly. But who cares? You don't have to walk in high heels.

There's nothing I liked visually of the period I was a child. There was no dream in it, and nothing sparkled.

I haven't yet met a woman who told me, 'I wish I had shorter legs.'

I love deep cleavage on the foot. It reminds me of Berlin in 1930s, 'Cabaret.'

It is extremely necessary to realize that the world doesn't only have one way of seeing things.

Some people don't even know my name, but they know I am the man with the red soles.

Funnily enough, the most difficult style to do is the plain pump because it needs to look good on a variety of feet. I compare it to having a good bone structure. Make-up will make you look good, but it helps if you have a good skeleton to begin with.

What was called extreme 20 years ago definitely isn't extreme anymore. When I started, I remember people saying, 'Oh my God, I can't walk in that!' It was like, three inches - they look like kitten heels now.

I really wish I had invented the flip-flop. I love flip-flops. It's the one style of shoe I would be so proud of inventing: the Havaiana.

When I'm doing a store in a country, I always like to consider the concept of the country and the city. Ask what are the clothes of the city, what does this city represent for me?

Something I really hate more than anything else is clogs.

Men in high heels? That's a prosthesis. But I sympathise. Women have these giant heels. They get taller and taller. The men need help. But a man in heels is ridiculous.

Part of my work is dedicated to artisanship and can only be done by very few people because it requires a specific technique. Being an artist is being at the service of yourself; I am at the service of other people.