You know, you cannot be comfortable on a high heel shoes the way you would be in sneakers. But, you know, not everyone wants to be on sneakers. Sneakers are for different purposes.

I never had a plan. I have to say, I'm very shocked when people start a company and say, 'In five years I want to launch a perfume, or in 10 years I want to have this.' How can you know?

I was the youngest kid. When I was five, my sisters were 17, 19, and 21, already becoming women. I would see how different they would be around one another and around men, even my father.

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’ve always been very detail orientated, but I have gone from embellishment to nudity - from designing for a woman that likes to be dressed to designing for a woman that likes to be undressed.

If you are not bored by life, and your primary motto is enthusiasm and if you like your friends, family around you, it all translates into your designs. That's what keeps the creativity alive.

In France you cannot not have lunch. If you stopped the French from having lunch, you will have a second revolution, I can tell you this. Not going to work - it is part of the French privilege.

A house is very much like a portrait. I cannot disconnect houses from people. The thought of arrangement, the curves and straight lines. It gives an indication of the character at the heart of it.

In a creative business, if you're happy, it will come out in your work. I don't see how you can be happy if you don't like the people you're working with and if they aren't a joy to have fun with.

I feel I am a role model to many, not just for my designs, but also for the fact that I started my own company with the help of my two friends. I became a success story, and people relate to that.

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.

Even if you don't like colours, you will end up having something red. For everyone who doesn't like colour, red is a symbol of a lot of culture. It has a different signification but never a bad one.

I hate the whole concept of comfort! It's like when people say: 'Well we're not really in love but we're in a comfortable relationship.' You're abandoning a lot of ideas when you're too into comfort.

Listen, to appeal to someone else you might put on a pair of shoes that you don't like or a dress you don't like. But there's no way you're going to put on a perfume you don't like; it's too personal.

The shiny red color of the soles has no function other than to identify to the public that they are mine. I selected the color because it is engaging, flirtatious, memorable, and the color of passion.

'Comfy,' that's one of the worst words! I just picture a woman feeling bad, with a big bottle of alcohol, really puffy. It's really depressing, but she likes her life because she has comfortable clogs.

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!

When a woman buys shoes, she takes them out of the box and looks at herself in the mirror. But she isn't really looking at her shoes - she's looking at herself. If she likes herself, then she likes the shoes.

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.

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.

A lot of my friends have tattoos; I realized that it's not only just a part of pop culture, but a bit of a map on someone's body, which says something about people. A part of their life, like an armor or a crest.

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.

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.

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.

Born and raised in Paris, I am deeply attached to my city; we almost have half a century of love story together, where I have been truly completely faithful! The most beautiful city in the world is my city, yeepeeee!

What is sexual in a high heel is the arch of the foot, because it is exactly the position of a woman's foot when she orgasms... So putting your foot in a heel, you are putting yourself in a possibly orgasmic situation.

One thing I detest, I have to say, is when a shoe is too soft, and it's molding to the foot. This is quite disgusting. And I really, really hate incredibly long shoes, where the last is very pointy, almost like Aladdin.

Breakfast is a peaceful moment for me, so I never have the radio on, no music, no noise around. The only noise that is permitted is people's voices. It's a way for me to wake up without too much of a high speed feeling.

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.

My business partner gave me a drone, a small helicopter you pilot with an iPhone, and also it has a camera so you can see what it sees on the iPhone. Great fun. I fly it outside in Portugal. It's wonderful to oversee gardens.

A lot of women don't like when they're sort of fat, but a fat foot is as beautiful as a skinny foot. Think of Greek statues. Look how many people love the foot of the baby! There is something super-charming about the baby foot.

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 wouldn't take it as a compliment if someone looked at one of my shoes and said, 'Oh, that looks like a comfortable shoe.' There is a heel that is too high to walk in, certainly. But who cares? You don't have to walk in high heels.

During breakfast there is something I cannot resist, apart from my boyfriend - it's actually the phone. I have a phone breakfast. Always. I call friends, boyfriend, family. Checking who is where. 'Is everything fine?' This is breakfast.

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!

I think I have a part of myself which is a woman. When girls are together, they speak completely differently than when there is a guy around. But, with me, they don't see this masculine thing stopping them, and there is not this boundary.

I remain faithful to bourbon sour. It's absolutely delicious. You'd have to ask a bartender what's in it, but I think if you know you might never have a drink. I also love a little rum, 7 years aged, brown, when it is chilly, before dinner.

I don't give away my shoes to celebrities for free. I'm only happy when people like what I do and make the effort to buy them. I would not be happy to see people in my shoes if I knew that they had to be paid to do it, that they had to be pushed.

I was born 20 years after my eldest sister. I was the pampered child. That kind of love gives you an almost unbreakable backbone. My mother had three kids before me. She let me be completely free. I just never had anything to beat myself up over.

I really have not so much sympathy. If Tina Turner and Prince's back-up band can perform on stage in them for three hours, you can't tell me they are impossible to walk in. High heels are pleasure with pain. If you can't walk in them, don't wear them.

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.

Fruit in the morning is such a big joy for me. I like to grab fruit from the tree et cetera. I don't feel that way with vegetables. Fruit you can eat it at any time, any moment, in any type of situation. I like everything about fruit, I like the color.

Fruit in the morning is such a big joy for me. I like to grab fruit from the tree, et cetera. I don't feel that way with vegetables. Fruit, you can eat it at any time, any moment, in any type of situation. I like everything about fruit; I like the color.

I never wanted to work in fashion. At age 12 or 13, I wanted to design for showgirls - for the theater! And I was crazy for the Hollywood of the 1950s: Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, Jennifer Jones. They were my idea of glamour - and Sylvie Vartan, the French singer.

If the height of the heel is the same as the length of your foot, it starts to look wrong. And if the heel is positioned badly on the sole, you get into ballerina territory, where the body is pushed into a very strange posture. You can exaggerate the arch only so much.

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. I definitely would not have done it if she hadn't passed away.

My father, who was a cabinetmaker, told me, 'Wood has a grain and if you go into the grain, you have beauty. If you go against it, you have splinters - it breaks.' And I took that as my view of life. You have to follow the grain - to be sensitive to the direction of life.

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.

I'm always taking into consideration how the shoe will look on the foot, its relation to the ankle and the leg - that's very important. I often see shoes that seem interesting or nice until a woman puts them on. then a lot of shoes look very clunky, and nobody likes to see that.

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.

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