CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN
Once, when I was in Paris for work some years ago, I arranged to have breakfast with my friend Christian Louboutin. We ambled down the Rue de Rivoli and wandered into a smart-looking cafe.
The place was empty; we were asked by a snotty waitress if we had booked, but it didn't seem much of an issue. We ordered some coffee and chatted away while we waited ... and waited. After half an hour, we hailed our waitress to find out where our beverages had got to. 'I'm afraid you haven't booked so I can't serve you,' she said malevolently. 'In fact, you had better leave.' We had just reached that crescendo in our conversation where a sip of hot foaming cappuccino would delightfully take it up to the next level. We sat stunned by this unexpected turn.
'Why did you take our order and then leave us sitting here?' Christian argued. 'You didn't book, so I can do what I like,' sneered the waitress from her position of power. After some heightened, fruitless exchanges, she was poised to flounce off with her tray of glasses when Christian suddenly smacked it from below and they flew off and smashed onto the floor-while we ran for it. We stopped halfway down the street and fell about laughing, half from the shock of being so disdained and insulted, and the rest from the surprise of Christian's uncharacteristic outburst of violence. Christian is usually very sagacious and reasonable, so I asked why he had decided to attack. 'I didn't want her to think that just because I was wearing pink trousers she could push me around,' he said.
