David Lynch is démodé now, if you look at his films. I looked at them the other weekend.

If I look back I feel frightened, not happy, because my life is a bit of a mystery to me.

It's the only thing I get inspired by! I get inspired by dreams. Who cares about the rest?

My whole life has been a huge mistake, but what a divine mistake - doing something that I adore.

I never thought that I would sell to young people, but now girls who are 14 and 15 buy my shoes.

I wish I was making shoes instead of reading or watching movies, which is what I do in my free time.

What is fashion? It's discipline. Discipline and a credo to do only the best, down to the smallest detail.

I'm going to do what I do, even more exaggerated. This is my attitude always. I don't betray myself at all.

Most of the people nowadays send their things by internet. But I cannot work that way. I like to do it myself.

The only way I can cope with me and my environment is to have this kind of wall around me. I'm exhausting myself.

About half my designs are controlled fantasy, 15 percent are total madness and the rest are bread-and-butter designs.

The secret of toe cleavage, a very important part of the sexuality of the shoe; you must only show the first two cracks.

When somebody wants to work and believes in something, it doesn't matter if you're well known or rich or whatever it is.

Women are wearing tight and sexy clothes again. It is the body-conscious mentality, and women are revealing every bulge.

The imprint of Miss Hepburn is absolutely, totally present. Like it or not, she will be the most important look of the twentieth century.

Everything is global now. It's not London, it's not Spain, it's not Italy - everything is everywhere. So you have to be everywhere, I guess.

I saw these girls like Sherilyn Fenn and Lara Flynn Boyle that should be working now instead of these anonymous girls. They're all the same.

You realize how much fun we did have, with no money at all. We'd stay in peoples' homes in Tangiers. When you're young, you invite yourself.

Men tell me that I've saved their marriages. It costs them a fortune in shoes, but it's cheaper than a divorce. So I'm still useful, you see.

I'm loyal to my thoughts, to my friends. This is what I really like the best. Loyalty. Sounds goody-goody. Maybe that's not the one you wanted.

I'm a great observer of delicate situations and women. I really like that bygone type of movement, and for a long time I had been looking for it.

The greatest shoemaker in England for many, many decades; he used to be the royal shoe-maker for the Queen Mother. This is where I learnt my trade.

I do enjoy my own company. I cannot imagine anybody entertaining me more than I do. If it sounds selfish, I don't care. I made it a religion almost.

When I was out of favor and people didn't want that type of boot, flats, or high heels with the elegant, dainty things, it gave me much more energy.

My most treasured clothing item is first suit that I made - acid green. It was disgusting, but I love it. It's been mended a million times, but I still wear it.

I love exaggerated, and I love eccentric, but you must be comfortable. Otherwise it is nonsense. There is nothing charming about a woman who cannot walk in her shoes.

When I was a boy I remember the women, how they dressed, how they behaved, what was important to them at the time. Like Lee Marvin and Gloria Grahame in The Big Heat.

It's the only thing I really enjoy - so fresh, even now that I'm doing the new sampling. I'm dying to go to the factory, which is like nobody's idea of fun. But it's mine.

I do and re-do things that I used to do in a flash, because I want to be more perfectionist about these things. Maybe it sounds pompous and pretentious, but that's the way I feel.

Alas, passion is conducive to certain other things because when you have too much passion and you have too much work, you possibly end up having black holes. The danger is too much passion.

If I was a woman, I would be dressed in the same thing for a month and just change my hat and gloves. Maybe my shoes too; yes, I see what you mean but, really, it's jewels that change an outfit.

I hate these platforms that are all over the place today; they are all about grabbing attention. They are suburban! I never do a platform. Well, I did, in the 1970s, but that was a bad experience.

I think Lucy Ferry, now Birley, is absolutely beautiful. She's a modern girl, but she moves beautifully. Amanda [Harlech] moves beautifully when she's not working. All those English leftover society girls.

I'm a doodler. It was my first job as a boy, and I still do it. At night I keep a block of paper and a pencil with a huge piece of string next to me. When I have an idea, I grab the string and just doodle.

The only people that come to my mind in the last years are Lee McQueen and John Galliano. Truly, truly . . . How do I say? Full of ideas. Full of the smell. They just had this incredible passion for what they did.

That kind of woman who used to be there at the time is not here any longer. In 10 years, people disappear. But I fantasize still about those kinds of women, and that kind of life that doesn't really exist any longer.

I saw this vision with a beautiful plastic bag in Kensington High Street, ... and then you didn't see the face because he had this blond thing [indicating a sweeping fringe across his face] that was, you know, too much!

I really connect with Victoria Beckham's desire to do something that she wants to do. Of the girls we've been talking about, she's one of the few that has this incredible sort of "I want to do it, and I want to do it well."

You get two weeks after you do a shoe where you can test whether it's good or not - if you're going to like it in 20 years. Then I know that it's going to be my shoe for a long time. That doesn't happen very often, but it happens.

Passion is passion. It's a sort of madness and possession of what you do or what you think. This is the difference of life: passion and commerce, which most of the people know as "P.C." But people have just got "C" now instead of "P."

I'd been to Saint Petersburg before, but there's been a change in people's minds. Maybe it's a fashionable thing, but people have returned to the churches. I went to a Russian Orthodox and a Catholic church - both of the queues, enormous!

You'd see extraordinary-looking people around in the '70s. It was so exciting! You'd have mad people, like Gerlinde Kostiff riding around on her bicycle with a huge hat. Everybody was doing things. I don't have any bad memories of that period.

I'm always kind of contradictory to what people want and what's selling. But maybe I should care now because I have two or three more outlets. I have to be more adaptable color-wise to what people want. It's usually just black and pink, and that's it.

I'm totally twisted. Instead of, "Oh god, I don't have platforms - they won't like me," I was much more, "I'm doing what I'm doing, and if you don't want to buy it, then don't buy, but that's just what I'm gonna do." It gave me strength. It worked for me.

I'm loyal to my friends, but I have so few now.I force myself to see people when they're here. Or when I'm here. I don't live in England that much now in the sense that I spend time in factories. I'm such a factory man now. This is really what I enjoy doing.

I don't even think about the word. But I do have certain things where I just go, "Aaaaahhh," irritatingly boring and insistent because I want it to look that way and I can do it - I don't even know if you'd call it passion or obsession. Obsession, possibly, but I really love what I do.

It was a different social structure. I'd go to [David] Bailey's for dinner at 10:30. There were always girls there and a house full of . . . I don't know, anybody. Cecil Beaton, Diana Cooper . . . And there I am sitting down with these creatures of the 20th century, and it was normal to us.

I thought Victoria Beckham was going to be one of those pop girls, but she's absolutely the complete opposite. She's a working girl. She knows what she wants. And when she doesn't know, she really prepares herself. I love this working type of women. And she's a girl from - I don't even know where she's from.

Some people just use beautiful things to just shop or to have a tribal feeling - 'Oh, blah, blah, blah, I'm wearing Hermes; blah, blah, blah, I'm wearing Saint Laurent; blah-blah blah' - because it's like a need, a tribe, recognition: 'Ahh, my Rolex.' But I run away from anything which is too recognizable - it's my nature.

I only saw one collection of Victoria Beckham, and I thought it was very much like Pierre Cardin or Marcel Rochas dresses. She's thought about it, and she knows what she wants. And people buy it, so that means she works. She has this incredible will power to do something that she likes to do. And I love that. I respect that.

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