The Timeless Allure Of Manolo Blahnik
Discreetly tucked away on Old Church Street in Chelsea, one can find the holy grail of shoes. Step inside the Manolo Blahnik store and you will discover the ultimate English fashion-girl club, where once you could find, on any given Tuesday, legendary muses including Lucy Ferry, Issy Blow, Tina Chow, Amanda Harlech and Kate Moss.
Pop in today and you might spy Rihanna stocking up on her favourite Chaos sandals or Margot Robbie, who did the whole Barbie press tour in BB pumps. Inside its boxes of delights are heels of temptation and inspiration. Manolos are mood-catchers, dream-makers and silhouette-shapers… trust me, you can’t have a bad day in a pair of Manolos.
Some shoes, like the Maysale and the Kate Moss-approved Mary Jane, have been in the Manolo world for four decades and remain as fresh and fashionable as the day the Spanish shoe maestro first designed them. As the brand launches its Silhouette range, spotlighting its most timeless and celebrated styles, it’s worth considering what makes Manolo – the man and the shoes – unique.
“He is the most exquisite man I know,” says Harlech, a creative consultant and stylist, and one of his dearest inspirations and collaborators. She describes him as having a “countertenor laugh exploding in mirth, with a flourish of his silk handkerchief and his constant Rudolph Valentino chic”. Added to his remarkable personal charisma is, she says, “his unswerving force to refining the balance of his extraordinarily beautiful shoes”. He’s dedicated his life to perfecting proportions, as Isaac Mizrahi (for whom Blahnik designed the Maysale mule in 1991) explains: “No matter how high the heel, how low the heel, Manolo makes it best and it looks its most beautiful. It’s logical. He adds all things that are beautiful and takes away all things that are not. And he knows what those things are more than anyone.”
His quest for perfection has lasted for 50 years and he distils into his work a myriad of cultural references. “His brilliant mind is filled with passages of poetry, scenes from films painted with light and sculpted with emotional shadow, the beat of the dance, [paintings by] Goya,” says Harlech. So much goes into his shoes, but you get so much out in return – aesthetically and emotionally. Harlech likens slipping on a pair of Manolo heels to “dancing with the most rhythmically poised dancer who guides the small of your back, your shoulders and neck, the tilt of your head with a magical, invisible hand”. They are transformative.
“I have always been fascinated by the way shoes can change your whole essence and mood. There is a power in them that I have felt since I was a child,” says Kristina Blahnik, the company’s CEO and Manolo’s niece. Born into the business, she would do homework in the boutique after school, where she vividly remembers “putting on a pair of red patent pumps, with an 11.5cm heel and dancing around our Old Church Street store feeling completely elated”. If a heel is the volume control of who you are, wear it high. As Manolo says: “I like a woman who knows what she wants.”
I have a pair that moved a stranger to kneel and kiss them in the street, a pair that somehow signal rain, a pair I got promoted in, and then there is the power pair I resign or make difficult decisions in. You stand up for yourself because you stand taller in Manolos.
“Manolos hold so many memories for everyone,” says Kristina. “I love it when people tell me their stories, which often span decades of their lives. The adventures they’ve been on, places they’ve been and who they were with at that very moment… which is exactly what Manolo wants. He breathes life into these objects before they go on their own adventures with their lucky owners.”
Every handcrafted shoe has its own story. “When Manolo first designed his Mary Jane in the ’90s, he had gone through a moment of designing very ornate shoes, a style he loves and always will, but the simple Mary Jane was the antithesis. It was a moment for him to focus on the heel, profile and silhouette in its truest form,” she says, pointing to the BB pump, inspired by one of his ultimate inspirations, Brigitte Bardot, as another example of her uncle focusing on perfecting minimalism.
BB, Mary Jane, Maysale, Chaos: find the shoe, find your silhouette. It’s like choosing a magic wand and the heel chooses the mood and wearer. As Yves Saint Laurent said: “Fashion fades, style is eternal.” Manolos are eternal style for your soul, magic for your silhouette. Ask a supermodel? “High heels put your ass on a pedestal where it belongs,” says Veronica Webb. This is a mantra for Manolo wearers. Kristina Blahnik makes another point. A good shoe is “a timeless investment that lasts a lifetime”. Remember: you don’t need a plus one – you need a pair of Manolos.
Photographer RIKKI WARD
Fashion Editor SOPHIA NEOPHITOU
Text CAMILLA MORTON
Fashion assistant GEORGIA EDWARDS
