Shoes for men are about elegance or wealth, they are not playing with the inner character. That is why women are happy to wear painful shoes.

I like to undress women - not to dress them. You know, like Manet's 'Olympia' or Helmut Newton's photographs - naked women with shoes. This is what I am trying to do.

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.

For me there ain't no high heel high enough!

I think every market has lot of things in common, and at the same time, every market has lot of different things.

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.

[While designing] I'm mixing two lines of thought really: me as a designer for women and then me as a man. At the start of the design process it's the designer for women that comes to the forefront - sketching and revising the silhouette. Then the man comes into the picture - and I look at the shoe from a very masculine point of view. Then there is a conflict between the two sides of me. Sometimes the man wins, and sometimes the designer wins.