When you do something you love, you have a passion for it. It comes naturally. Staying true to yourself and doing what you love keeps you going...everything else falls into place.

The designer side of me has many ideas on how the shoes or woman should look, but the man is thinking 'would I want to see my girl in those shoes?'

A woman tells a story with her clothes, but it's the shoe that carries her.

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.

[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.

Meet people from other cultures, so you understand that the world doesn't swirl around you.

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