Giorgio Armani

After more than 30 years of extraordinary success, Giorgio Armani will go down in history as the man who defined the working wardrobe of the late 20th century and taught Hollywood how to dress. As president, chief executive and sole shareholder of his company, he is considered by many to be the world’s wealthiest fashion designer, with a fortune estimated by Forbes in March 2008 at $5 billion.

Mr. Armani was born in 1934 in Piacenza, an industrial city in northern Italy. He did well at school and won a place to study medicine at university. After serving in the military for two years, he abandoned his studies and in 1957 found a job as a display assistant and buyer at La Rinascente in Milan, then one of Europe’s chicest department stores. Shortly afterward, he fell in love with the architect Sergio Galeotti.

After seven years at La Rinascente, Mr. Armani joined the men’s-wear designer Nino Cerruti, where he was drilled in tailoring and production. In 1975 Mr. Galeotti persuaded Mr. Armani, then 40, to start his own label for both men and women. He would run the business, while Mr. Armani designed.

Jimmy Choo names shoe after Iris Apfel

Geriatric starlet Iris Apfel is no ordinary nonagenarian. Her chaotic personal style has been lauded in the pages of Vogue and The New York Times of late, her encyclopaedic knowledge of fashion has won her a professorship at the University of Texas at Austin, and her exuberant make-up (she favours bombastically bright lips) has inspired a collection with MAC cosmetics.

In pictures: celebrities who have fashion accessories named after them

Her collaboration with glasses brand Eye-Bobs was another obvious partnership; Apfel is famed for her enormous peepers, which lend her eyes the appearance of gobstoppers. Less palpable a connection, however, was announced today, when Jimmy Choo launched a new shoe in "ultimate homage to the grand dame of idiosyncratic fashion".

The Iris shoe, "inspired by the inimitable style of fashion innovator and doyenne of ethnic embellishment, Iris Apfel," is a hand-woven leather sandal with a five inch killer heel, embellished with a cascade of resin chip ornaments, retailing at £895. Other items in the range include the Holly, a flat version of the sandal, and the Xara, a fringed bag. Creative Directors Sandra Choi and Simon Holloway referenced Apfel's "maximalist style and bold layering of tribal and ethnic jewellery" as keynotes in their design process.

What would the grand dame of New York style have to say about this latest homage, we wonder? Judging by a comment she made in an interview with WWD last month, it seems she won't be hot-footing it down to her local Choo store any time soon.

When asked for her views on the worst trend in current footwear, she responded: "Those big platforms and insanely high heels. They look like an orthopedist's delight. I don't see anything beautiful about them."

The heart attack-inducing height of the Choos isn't the only problem that Apfel might encounter with the eponymous sandals, however; she also exclaimed that she likes "clean-looking shoes. I don't mind if a shoe is embellished, but it has to be well designed. Manolo's shoes seem perfectly designed. He knows what he's doing. And there's nothing that beats a classic pump."

Perhaps Jimmy Choo should consider a re-christening. These have got J-Lo written all over them.