Why women fall at Manolo's feet

Manolo Blahnik has been asked to pose for a photograph in front of samples of his spring shoe designs in his showroom on the King's Road. "Well, come on!" he says, diving into the shelves to remove a fuchsia-pink stiletto, and crushing it up next to a beaded giraffeprint sandal. He pounces on each style as if it were a naughty tropical bird attempting to slip out of his grasp, and greeting every one of them with an, "Aaah, I

A self-confessed aesthete, today he is suffering for appearance's sake in a pale blue tweed suit. "Imagine how hot this bloody thing is," he says, rolling his eyes and patting his barely lined nutmeg-brown forehead. At 60 he looks every inch the retired matinèe idol, a gent of the old school with his pomaded grey hair and immaculate buckskin brogues.

In the homogenous world of fashion, Manolo Blahnik and the shoes that bear his name are never predictable. All the shoes are handmade in relatively small numbers, many of them in fabrics most of us wouldn't risk on a hair clasp. You can bend a Manolo in half and it will spring back like elastic. The craftsmanship is second to none (anyone who likes their heels high knows that only a Manolo can be relied on to negotiate stairs as sure as a mountain goat).

That, plus the fact that a pair of Manolos gives you legs you didn't know you had, explains why the fashionable and famous have never found a worthy substitute.

Sarah Jessica Parker was mugged for hers in the last series of Sex and the City; American Vogue editor Anna Wintour doesn't wear anything else; Princess Diana stepped out in Manolos on the night of the David Dimbleby interview in which Prince Charles admitted his infidelity. She walked tall, head held high (Manolos are great for posture; you can't slouch).

Sarah Jessica Parker might have made Manolos a household name in the Nineties, but Bianca Jagger was a frequent visitor to the Chelsea shop in the early Seventies ("Bianca had tiny feet, like a little bird - size 33").

Then, Manolo was at the heart of a glittering circle - Paloma Picasso, Anjelica Huston, Marie Helvin and Tina Chow. Bianca wore his shoes when she made that famous entrance to Studio 54 on a white horse. And when she was at home in Cheyne Walk, Blahnik would visit most nights on his bicycle: "I used to change Jade's nappies," he says, "they were like my family."

Blahnik was raised with his sister, Evangeline, on a banana plantation in the Canary Islands (his father was Czech). He shows me a picture of him as a naked two-year-old, one sandal on, the other raised to the camera. "My mother said I was always fascinated with shoes, taking them on and off, so this picture is like some kind of premonition!"

Still, it took a stint at the university of Geneva and a sojourn in Paris before Blahnik ended up in the blood-red New York office of the then American Vogue editor Diana Vreeland. At this point, in 1970, he had aspirations as a theatre designer but Vreeland took one look at his shoes (tiny Edwardian ones from Portobello Market) and his portfolio of fantasy productions and advised him to concentrate on "the funny little things on the feet".

He hotfooted it to London, where he set up shop (then named Zapata) in Old Church Street, which is still the only place in Europe, bar a franchise in Paris, where you can buy Manolos. "I couldn't live in New York. No. I need a fix of the baroque." He lives, when he's not at the factories in Milan, between houses in Battersea and Bath. "In London, you still have these incredible striking women who don't care about fashion, they only care about what they like."

A self-confessed workaholic ("Are you kidding! I can't stand holidays! I hate the beeech!"), he's also an insomniac, and a born mimic (for his imitation of Kate Moss he adopts a chirpy, knock-kneed position; the likeness is uncanny). "The luxury for me would be to be rested one day. I'm a mess all the time," he flutters in his chair. "Mind you, my heart, apparently, is divine."

In recognition of his long reign as the undisputed master shoemaker, the Design Museum is staging the first retrospective of his work. On display will be the shoes that Jerry Hall has ordered every year since 1984, the pair Kate Moss wore in the Dior couture show in the mid-Nineties (the heel created with the aid of aviation expertise), and the green suede open-toed sandals with the cherry strewn ties that appeared on Ossie Clark's catwalk in 1971.

Naturally, Blahnik, a man who dodges the security cameras in his own shop, finds the ensuing fuss quite traumatising. "It's so stupid. After all, what I do is shoes!"

He is genuinely appalled at the effusive tone of the quotes in the accompanying book of his drawings, comparing him to Picasso (American Vogue's Grace Coddington), and declaring his shoes to be better than sex (Madonna). Then again, ask him to pick his favourite six designs of all time and he falls on the book with the eagerness of a groupie.

"People do seem to have this kind of obsession. They say, 'I'm feeling depressed - I'm going to Manolo.' And obviously, when you walk in this," he points at his take on a Timberland boot with a 105mm heel, a Nineties best seller, "you've got instant transformation. You put it on and you become another person."

Since the Nineties, Manolo has become a brand name on a par with Calvin Klein or Ralph Lauren. In 1991 even Marge Simpson appeared in rocketheeled Manolos in an episode of The Simpsons, proving that Manolo, like the Beatles, had cracked America. "They do get excited when I go to Neiman Marcus twice a year and sign shoes and T-shirts. You should see what's going on in America. Those girls have rooms built for my shoes."

He loves the American appreciation of quality, and equally he adores our British irreverence. "I like to see anybody, even those huge girls, in shoes that look great. You know what it is? I adore what I do, and that is the only way to live. Phew," he mops his brow theatrically. "Don't you have enough nonsense from me?" The answer to which is, of course, "No, never."

Manolo Blahnik, a retrospective, is at The Design Museum, 28 Shad Thames, London SE1, from 1 February to 11 May. Manolo Blahnik Drawings is published this month (Thames and Hudson, £22.50).