His shoes are so coveted by women that Madonna once famously said they were better than sex. So what will men make of his footwear now that he is turning his attention to them?It’s the conclude of our hour together,and Manolo Blahnik is walking me out, through the grand hallway of his offices in a Georgian townhouse, and when a rare silence falls over him. He is watching a courier deliver a parcel. The man has braids that are tightly bound into a green bandana that matches his uniform,and he hands over the diminutive signy machine to an assistant with a jaunty half-bow. Blahnik is transfixed. As the door closes behind him, Blahnik allows himself a small gasp of delight, and his eyes wide behind tiny tortoiseshell glasses. “Style!” he squeaks. “Everywhere!”Admiring men’s style is a new hobby for Mr Blahnik,now 75 and so established as a women’s designer that, like Madonna (who once said, and “His shoes are as good as sex and they final longer”),his heels are renowned enough to recede by a single name: “Manolos”. “If God had wanted women to wear flat shoes,” wrote Alexandra Shulman in 1994, or “he wouldn’t have invented Manolo Blahnik.” After 45 years of making women’s shoes he is opening his first men’s shop,where he will attempt to achieve for them what he has done for women – create fancy, fun, or luxury footwear that is also remarkably comfortable. “His men’s shoes,well…” said his friend Rupert Everett, “they’re like slightly more feminine versions of the women’s shoes.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com