Roland Mouret is sat in his own private boudoir as staff flit around preparing the Selfridges private shopping area for a dinner to celebrate the launch of his debut collection for French shoe brand Robert Clergerie.
Hes drinking copious pots of tea (I want to fill up so I dont eat too much tonight its fashion week next week you know?) and he is affectionately fondling a very lovely shoe.
But theres nothing of the diva about Mouret especially when it comes to the new shoe line. For starters, he wants to make shoes that women can actually walk in.
If I am making a heel for a woman I want it to be as pleasurable for her to wear as it is for others to look at. You can play on the sexuality of a woman by making an extraordinary heel but if she cannot walk in it, there is nothing sexy about it.
Hallelujah. The beautiful curved heel on the suede T-bar Quarto shoe looks killer, but wont kill you (as affirmed by the PR team who had been wearing them all day). And there are brogues, stacked heels and little wedge booties to boot.
Overall, theres a Seventies attitude to the whole collection, a hazy, soft-focus Emanuelle kind of sexiness which has already found fans in Alexa Chung and Florence Welch. Mourets inspiration was Madame Claude, an infamous procurer of 1970s Paris who, according to Mouret only ever got the very best and most beautiful call-girls, they all married dignitaries and rich men or became really famous.
For Mouret the transition from designing dresses under his own name to designing shoes under somebody elses wasnt as tricky as it may first seem. I am a designer who works with his hands, he explains, I drape, I touch, I feel my way around. Designing for Robert Clergerie is not a challenge because I respect his vision and am satisfied to preserve his legacy. With the dresses, I create my own legacy.
And what of that legacy in the upcoming Paris Fashion Week? Could he hint as to what we can expect? You already know what to expect, he exclaims, black and white, just like everybody else!
