Shoe and accessory designer Beverly Feldman was not running late, but she still rushed through the front door of a Midtown apartment building wrapped in a light-brown trench coat clutching a small bag and, upon entering the elevator, feigned collapse against its wall. She looked up and revealed a fragment of a smile on her face.

“I couldn’t get a cab for some reason,” she said. “I finished up an interview with ‘Behind the Velvet Rope’ at the store and Kirstie Alley dropped by, so I stayed and talked with her for a while. I just love Kirstie – I really respect her because she’s pulled herself through adversity and is turning her life around.”

The elevator doors opened, and she headed for her door. For part of the year, Ms. Feldman lives in a mansion in Muchamiel, Spain, but when she travels to New York City to visit her Midtown boutique on 56th Street, she stays at her one-bedroom on 55th.

Shoe lovers may already be familiar with Ms. Feldman’s expressive designs; indeed, her work is iconic enough that “CSI New York” recently featured a Beverly Feldman stiletto as a murder weapon. Her glittering pumps and satin slippers are as popular with 11-year-old girls as with women in their 80s, and a new line of household items includes a feathered and jeweled fly swatter (called “Love Kills”) rubber dish gloves, mops, and aprons. Fans may not be familiar with the face behind the brand, though. While her designs channel her vibrant personal style, she has maintained a low profile.

After she glided through her sparkling white hallway past mirrored lights, pale rugs, and an antique red Chinese chest of drawers crammed with a pack of porcelain panthers, she plonked her bag down in a leopard skin-lined chair and disappeared into her bedroom.

When Ms. Feldman emerged from her bedroom, the trench had come off and she was decked out in diamantes, colorfully embroidered jeans, a leopard-print blouse with an explosion of flowers on her right shoulder and a pair of red sequined heels from her collection. She pulled a Diet Coke from a sparsely stocked refrigerator.

Ms. Feldman has worked for more than 30 years to get to where she is, and it all started when she was in her early 20s. Growing up in Massachusetts, she was always drawing shoes. When she was in her early 20s both of her parents died, prompting Ms. Feldman to turn her passion into a business in order to provide for herself. She studied at the Pratt Institute where she met designer Doris Weston, who became her mentor.

With a solid education behind her, Ms. Feldman began working on her own label with the help of her husband at the time. They worked and lived together for 17 years, developing a unique aesthetic and increasing sales.

“I think that when women get married they can sometimes lose themselves,” Ms. Feldman said. “When I divorced my husband I found that I rediscovered my fabulous self.”

Ms. Feldman estimates that she now completes 1,200 designs a year and her shoes are sold in more than 20 countries around the world.

“The designing process is very intense for me,” she said. “I spend a month and a half in preparation by shopping and getting ideas together and then I basically go into a hole and don’t come out until all the work is done. I don’t socialize; I don’t go out.”

Diet Coke in hand, Ms. Feldman took a seat in a white leather and steel neo-Bauhaus chair, crossed her legs and checked her Doris Day blond hair in one of more than 10 mirrors in her living room. The living room used to be filled with relics from her past and its windows looked out onto a Catholic church. It is now a pure white and filled with glass, white velvet, and steel. The view of the church has been covered with a wall of mirrors. For Ms. Feldman, change is essential to growth.

“I was looking around my apartment one day and I just thought, ‘How long do you hang onto something?'” she said. “So, I just gave everything away and started fresh.”

Along with this recent domestic change, Ms. Feldman is expanding her business into new countries around the world. She has begun a blog on her Web site that chronicles her shoe-research escapades and is reveling in the delight of a new young love interest. No matter what she does, it always comes back to shoes, accessories and her desire to share her panache with women everywhere.

“Deep inside every woman,” she said. “No matter how conservative she is, there is an allowance for fun with shoes.”