Later, he immersed himself in the whirlwind of parties resounding throughout Paris, turning his obsession with shoes towards the music hall: "Besides feathers, the dancers wore virtually nothing except shoes. And it's the combination of shoes and the naked body that interests me. So, in the meantime, I went round the music halls with my sketches of sandals. 'Sorry, darling,' they said 'we've no money...'" And so Christian Louboutin had to go back to school, to learn all the basics at Charles Jourdan, Maud Frizon, Chanel and Saint Laurent.

His first steps were to open a boutique near the Place des Victoires, in Paris. "Its statue of Louis XIV," notes Christian Louboutin, "is wearing one of my favourite shoes: a sort of reworked leather sandal." The shoes on display inside his boutique look more like colourful, exotic birds, caught inside the pigeonholes of a peculiar dovecote. "I like women to see my shoes as objects of beauty, as gems outside the realm of fashion, with their own universe. Shoes are not an accessory; they're an attribute."

"Women express themselves through their shoes" states Louboutin. When his customers come to him, they do not content themselves with a cup of coffee: they comment and advise. They admit what appeals to them, what feels comfortable to wear.

Christian Louboutin styles range from Louis XV to Georgian and Oriental, to Wedgwood porcelain... The deep purple of a periwinkle, the pale green of a moss, the bark of a birch and the delicacies of organised nature. He scribbles. If he dreams, he draws the dream. But this enfant terrible no longer wants to be seen as the wizard of the eccentric. "Today, I'm more preoccupied by the overall line than an eye-catching detail. I draw freely, then reduce. And I evolve: certain models, like the sandal with the golden strap decorated with bows, are a synthesis of several shoes."

Season after season, the boy who drew shoes became the man with the gold leaf heels, then the man with the Guinness beer can heels and after that, the man with the shoes that say Love (two letters per shoe). Today, the incredible Mr Louboutin is the man with the red soles. "I wanted to break the dullness of black or beige soles. All my soles are red." A trademark which he hopes will, as usual, be imitated...