Patrick Cox

“I've stayed in enough hotels so I really know what works and what doesn't design-wise.”

“Now, I'm older. I don't follow the vagaries of fashion: my look tends to be skinny flat-front trousers with a long-sleeve American Apparel T-shirt and a V-neck cashmere jumper - preferably Loro Piana.”

“Most of my holidays are with wonderfully generous friends with houses in the country or the South of France.”

“I don't eat at home, ever.”

“I was never a fashion snob.”

“I love Italy, and that's where I make my own shoes. But the French really do respect designers. Italy is totally different; footwear is an industry. The shoes are all about craft and luxury. French shoes are more about straight lines, and they are way more geometric.”

“I used to sock hop to 'Crocodile Rock' and stare at those platform boots on the album cover.”

“Elizabeth Hurley rocks. She really rocks.”

“I'm addicted to chinos the second weather gets warm enough.”

“Show some originality and never wear one designer head to toe.”

“Do I miss shoes? I miss the designing, but I don't miss the fashion industry. Those people eat their children.”

“I think a house should reflect the interests and personality of the occupant, but it takes time to gather together the objects one likes around oneself.”

“Shoe design is like architecture - with the finest structure and tight, precise seams, it suits my obsessive neatness.”

“By the time I came out of college, I was fabulous.”

“If you use your own name as your business brand, keep in mind that if you lose that brand, you have lost your name. And that is a bit of a problem going forward in life. If you decide to make up a name, and if you have lost that name, then who cares. But when it is your name on the products, and you lose it, that is the game changer.”

“I finished college by July 15th, 1985, and by October 1985, I had a little stand during the trade show which was London Fashion week at the time. My stand was tiny - just 6 square meters in total - and I had my 12 shoes that I designed while in college.”

“I lived in Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon when I was very young, until my mother divorced my father.”

“I love talking in lira because, suddenly, everything is in billions.”

“I'm a huge monarchist.”

“I was wondering if the best was behind me, had the high point of my career already happened. Then I saw what Manolo had done, and some of his best work happened after he turned 40.”