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.

Passage Vero-Dodat - I started my company on this passage. It feels as much home as it can!

A shoe is not only a design, but it's a part of your body language, the way you walk. The way you're going to move is quite dictated by your shoes.

People are proud of their tattoos. It's like a modern coat of arms.

Even today, I am still very child-like while designing. It's a bit like Christmas - each of your designs you create is like unravelling your presents.

There are few plants that are ugly. It's how you use them that may not be pretty.

The higher the better. It's more about an attitude. High heels empower women in a way.

I never had the dream to be a great designer. My focus was just to do beautiful things.

I don't like conflicts. I'm not a competitive person at heart. To be in the middle of turmoil is boring.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm not in the type of work where you should rest.

I don't repeat that many styles if I can help, although some have become classics. I try not to repeat. I'd rather surprise people.

When you are too specific on a target, it can drain you. Ask me where I will be when I am 60, and I will have no answer to give.

My mother's cross was given to me when she died. I like to have it always close to me.

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.

I was born in Paris in the mid-1960s, and by the time I was 12 I had started going to the movies by myself. Most of the movies of that period never appealed to me. I didn't like the 'naturalism,' the sad or the 'down-to-earth' characters. What I wanted from film was fantasy, dreams, funny situations, extravagant decor - and beautiful women.

I hate the idea of natural. For example, I prefer gardens to wild nature. I like to see the human touch. High heels are a complete invention - an extravagance. They're far from natural, but it's the impracticality that I adore. I prefer the useless to the useful, the sophisticated to the natural.

Women like my shoes because they look good on them, not because they look good on the rack.

There's nothing I liked visually of the period I was a child. There was no dream in it, and nothing sparkled.

I love deep cleavage on the foot. It reminds me of Berlin in 1930s, 'Cabaret.'

No woman wants to have fat ankles.

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!

There is an element of seduction in shoes that doesn't exist for men. A woman can be sexy, charming, witty or shy with her shoes.

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.

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.

I'm very detail oriented. Everything that takes a lot of dedication and creativity I do in the morning when there is light and I'm really concentrated.

I listen to my stomach. It tells me when I am starving.

I could not live with someone 24/7. I just never did, and I could never do.

I'm a designer, and I think if you work in fashion, you have to give people fantasy.

Bhutan is a very serene country with an incredible history. It has an incredible group of great artisans.

I like Adele, Mika, Natacha Atlas and a beautiful old record, 'An Evening with Belafonte/Mouskouri,' starring Harry Belafonte and Nana Mouskouri. What they have in common is they all have incredible voices. I am very much into voices. I would say I'm a fan of voices, not of sound. I'm a fan of singers, not of bands.

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 would say that a good shoe is exactly like a good wine. These shoes are going to stay and last for a long time.

Men in high heels? That's a prosthesis. But I sympathise. Women have these giant heels. They get taller and taller. The men need help. But a man in heels is ridiculous.

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.

I am always surprised by who wears my shoes. This is a good thing. There is no type of woman, but all my women like to feel feminine. They are women who are happy to be women.

I don't follow anything online. I am rather slow on that side.

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.

Shoes for men are about elegance or wealth; they are not playing with the inner character.

Madonna is a feminist and has been doing more for the cause than all the grumpy feminists, who are giving nothing back by being grumpy.

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.

The heel is engineering in itself. This little thing that supports the human weight has to have a precise balance.

In Paris, I really do like to try and do nothing... but that's impossible.

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.

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