If I'm in the country, my big idea is to do nothing. It means talking, it means cooking with the leftovers in the fridge - l'art d'accommoder les restes - it means gardening.

The most outrageous shoe that I had to do was a shoe where the person gave me stones - precious stones - and say that I could do anything with precious stones.

I was always shouted at by my teacher because I would draw straight on the table in the school.

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.

[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.

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.

The core of my work is dedicated not to pleasing women, but to pleasing men.