A woman can be sexy, charming, witty or shy with her shoes.

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?

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 prefer girls to wear dresses because I like how they influence a woman's body language. I also love skirts. One of my favorite pieces of clothing is the pencil skirt because it obliges the wearer to have a pretty attitude. I like anything that shows a woman's legs because I love to see her skin and how she walks.

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

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.

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.