Christian Louboutin, shoe design er de jour, discovered his passion for shoes as a teenager in Paris. The young Louboutin - who has since worked at design houses like Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent and with shoe-design legend Roger Vivier - had a penchant for the show girls at the Folies Bergere and Moulin Rouge, to the detriment of his schoolwork, and would draw sketches of shoes for every girl.

He knew all their names, becoming their little mascot. The sexuality of the French showgirls continued to influence his designs, which grace the feet of celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Gwen Stefani, Oprah, Katie Holmes (the list is endless) and have a starting price in the region of ?400. A pair of Louboutins, with their signature sexy red soles - inspired by an experiment with a bottle of varnish borrowed from the designer's assistant - scream glamour, drama and sensuality.

They are most definitely result (or 'reezult' as the 41-year-old Frenchman might say) shoes. A woman once came into his store and told him he had to design her wedding shoes because he had brought her nuptials about. A man had stopped her in the street and started a conversation by saying he loved her red soles. They ended up dating and getting engaged. Another man specially commissioned a pair of shoes for his wife, with ruby-paved soles. The sandals were not for walking in; only for bed.

If men are generally oblivious to the nuances of designer heels, they tend to sit up and take note of a pair of Louboutins. "To me it's a very good compliment that men love my shoes because, being a man also, I'm thinking there is something which I hate, this classical image - you know you are going out with a girl, " he says, "you look at her and you say, "No, no, come on. If you're going to go out with me tonight, you have to change. You're not coming out with me like that.' That is definitely a thing I would hate to be said of my work. I think it's important to please women but it's important to please men. A part of the pleasure of being a woman is to please herself but also to please other people."

Louboutin grew up in a household of five women - four sisters and his mother.

He says he does not design a pair of shoes with any particular woman in mind but he's adamant that when a woman wears his shoes she should feel good. Recalling a group of three women in his Paris shop, he says, "One of them - she was not ugly, she was not very pretty, but she had a lot of charm and a very open face. She put a shoe on and it was very funny. She didn't see me but she was totally transformed and suddenly her face changed. She said, 'Look, it's much better than a facelift and it's much cheaper, ' and she started to laugh.

"This shoe, which was actually a very simple shoe, made her a totally different person and she could see it immediately. Thank god, it was her size and she bought the shoe. But she was very, very, very happy and that's what a woman should feel and does feel when she wears my shoes."

What's interesting about his brand is their general appeal. They're as beloved of fashion editors as they are of Z-List wanabees. He is not overtly concerned with the calibre of Louboutin wearers. "Sometimes I do feel a person really has a weird style but at the end of the day, everybody is free and there are some people I adore and I really respect people but I am never thinking of a person when I design a shoe so it's up to the people to do whatever they want with it. It's no longer in my hands and I actually like to be surprised by how people are going to accessorise it."

His most unusual project involved a woman so delighted with her divorce that she asked him to use her divorce papers to make a shoe. "I said you may regret it, you may need the papers but she said, 'They will always be on me and they will be my favourite shoes. It will be printed out of my divorce settlement.' So I did the shoes, " he chuckles.

Apparently, a basic, plain pump is the most difficult design challenge. He likens it to a perfect face and bone structure. Makeup can enhance any face but, washed clean, nothing can ever be as beautiful as the perfectly portioned perfect one. "A shoe is a bit like that, once you have the bone structure right, it's easy to add diamonds or decoration but the real difficult base is the bone structure. A pump is like a clean face."

Do the red soles ever hinder him creatively?

"No, never. It works a little bit less when the shoe is the same colour red. Why?

Because you see less of the finish and less of the line because there is not difference. But otherwise I think red works with everything."

Louboutin has 14 boutiques around the world and the label is sold in 46 cities, including Dublin (Brown Thomas). He travels extensively, although his base is in Paris, and he has homes in the west of France and in Luxor, Egypt. He says he hates shopping but he likes beautiful things (his UK manager, who is present at the interview, is quick to point out that today he bought four tweed jackets). "I bought them in five minutes. I am like the quickest consumer in the world. I'm quick but I hate to go shopping!" he interjects.

Louboutin is a keen gardener and landscaper but if he wasn't a shoe designer he'd be a scriptwriter, he says. In fact, he's already written a script but there's little chance of losing him to the film world - his passion will always be shoes, he maintains.

He doesn't have a favourite design because "it's always the next one that you haven't yet finished".

And what does the designer of the world's most covetable shoes for women wear himself? Today he is sporting a pair of acid-green Converse trainers. Like everything else about the Louboutin story, it's a little but quirky but very fabulous.

Shoe's who?

JIMMY CHOO The Malaysian designer first set up shop in Hackney, London in 1986. Princess Diana was a fan.

He subsequently founded Jimmy Choo Ltd with Tamara Mellon (64th richest woman in Britain, dating Christian Slater, pictured) who bought him out for £10m. Another label championed by 'Sex and the City' and worn by Cameron Diaz, Sarah Jessica Parker, etc.

MANOLO BLAHNIK The designer who was born in the Canary Islands became a household name thanks to his constant name checking on 'Sex and the City'. Famed for his stilettos, his heels can often be as high as five-and-a-half inches JONATHAN KELSEY The shoe world's rising star, Kelsey has worked with Giles Deacon, Cacharel and Jimmy Choo. Kelsey dedicated a shoe to Amy Winehouse and has just shown his first collection for Mulberry.