Leg Show: A Christian Louboutin stiletto.   (Photo: Chago Akii-Bua & Brian Jones)

It sticks in subway grates, snaps when you are walking home, late at night. And yet the stiletto is the shoe of New York: towering, a bit frivolous, elegant, gutsy. Diane Von Furstenberg and her best friend, shoe designer Christian Louboutin, describe its appeal.

CL: Stilettos are not done for running. I don't see why everybody always has to run. Who's running? It's a misunderstanding of life. There are very few reasons to run all day. It's mental! It's really mental! If you wear the stilettos, a man can . . . how you say, Diane?

DVF: Approach you. He has time. It's flirtatious. If you have good shoes, you master the stilettos. This is the secret of being a woman.

CL: It's a body language.

DVF: It's a total advantage. It's a gadget. It's a weapon in more ways than one.

CL: Sometimes people come to me and say I am blind to women's needs, high heels are so this and so that. Well, they wouldn't buy them if they didn't want to.

DVF: Shoes are something that give you joy!

A weapon of destruction and a weapon of seduction, too.

CL: It's really for women to help with the men. They notice you, they turn. They see hair, they see the sole of your shoe. It's a Suivez-moi, jeune homme. Do you know this? “Young man, follow me,” like the ladies who would drop the handkerchief.

DVF: Yes. The suivez-moi of the twentieth century.

Related:

• Archive: “Cover Story”
• Table of Contents: Dec 23, 2002 issue of New York | Subscribe!