I simply can't help myself, I'm a Carrie Bradshaw clone

I was 15 when I first fell head over heels. The object of my affection was a pair of black Jimmy Choo sandals, embellished with silver stars.

My mother promised me them in return for a string of A*s at GCSE: the ultimate motivation for a revision-hating shoe-obsessive. I duly delivered.

In her infinite maternal wisdom, she had barred me from skyscraper stilettos until my feet were fully grown (please take note, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes). Perhaps because of this teenage ban - I remember looking enviously at friends' towering heels - my own have reached ever more vertiginous heights with every birthday.

I, meanwhile, have turned into an embarrassing Carrie Bradshaw clone: I even once went shoe shopping to beat the break-up blues.

But that's the joy of footwear. Shoes pip handbags to be the ultimate mood-improving buy. At least, until they give you blisters or bunions. They can make you look taller, slimmer, they can change the way you walk, the way you hold yourself, even sometimes the way you feel.

On "fat days", even a favourite dress can become an enemy. But Nicholas Kirkwoods are kinder: they forgive us the Dairy Milk.

No wonder, then, that luxury footwear sales have been almost unaffected by recession and that Selfridges is opening its shrine to the shoe, despite Britain entering its new age of austerity.

Now, the Louboutins, Balenciaga and McQueens finally have a home which matches their architectural triumph. I suspect, though, that we Imelda Marcoses in training will be too distracted by its contents to notice.