Christian Louboutin didn’t take last week’s not-so-constructive criticism lying down: The designer, whom I had once interviewed during a personal appearance at Neiman Marcus, fired off a furious e-mail, wondering how I could accuse him of laziness when he had put out shoes like the pleated purple suede d’Orsay pump above.

“Keep trying, Christian,” I replied. “I feel like I’ve seen that shoe before … on Miss Piggy, to be exact.”

After some genteel cursing he offered up the suede and leather lace-up bootie, to slightly better fanfare,. But I still wasn’t feeling wowed.

“Christian, show me something amazing,” I said. “Show me something some incredible it will make readers gasp. Something that’s iconic and sexy. Something that’s … not available in California.”

So he did.

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