Terry de Havilland

TERRY DE HAVILLAND has carved a career out of making disco-worthy shoes. "I can honestly say that my first memory is of shoes; platform shoes with ankle straps worn by my mother and made by my father, the house was always full of them. I guess you can say that shoes are in my psyche," says de Havilland, who began his fashion career at the age of five working in the workshop of his parents' shoe company, Waverley Shoes.

In 1957, he cut his first pair of shoes for the family business while on leave from the National Service, going on to design his first pair in 1960. A hit with the buyers, he kicked his career off in 1964 when his designs were featured in then-fashion magazine Queen.  In 1969, he designed his coloured snakeskin three-tiered wedge - which quickly earned him fans in the shape of Bianca Jagger and Bette Midler. De Havilland opened his first store, called Cobblers to the World, in 1972.

During the Seventies, he created Tim Curry's shoes for the Rocky Horror Show as well as putting his own spin on the stiletto for Zandra Rhodes. In 1973, the Margaux wedge was born (you know the one - fastens around the ankle, strappy across the toes, on a platform). By 1980, de Havilland was making over 800 pairs of shoes a day for worldwide sale. He set up a new label called Kamikazi, which was designed especially for punks and Goths. De Havilland met his wife, Liz, in 1990 and the Terry de Havilland name was beginning to crop up again on the fashion landscape. He created the shoes for Paco Rabanne and Anna Sui's runway shows in 1997 as well as designing the footwear for BAFTA-award winning film The Velvet Goldmine and producing Angelina Jolie's boots for the Tomb Raider film. The same year, he opened up Cobblers to the World in Camden - where customers included Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Teese. In 2002, de Havilland decided to close the store and focus on re-launching the brand. In 2006, he was nominated as Accessory Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards. An online couture service was launched in 2009 and in June of 2010, he was awarded with the Draper's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Autumn/winter 2010-11 has seen the re-launch of the mainline collection. De Havilland is also a professor at the University of the Arts London.