Manolo’s Shoe Blog

Manolo says, one of the Manolo’s internet friends, she has sent the Manolo the most interesting note.

Dear Manolo:

I think your blog is super fantastic and besides putting a smile on my face, it has also inspired me to dress better every day. And I think your synopses of the Project Runway episodes are sometimes even better than Tim Gunn’s!

I would say that anyway, but today I am writing you in particular because I am selling off one of my dresses from Project Runway 1. My wonderful husband managed to get me three of the dresses from Project Runway 1: two by Kara Saun and one by Austin Scarlett. A good seamstress finished two dresses for me and revised them for my figure, and I feel like a model whenever I wear them. But one of the dresses is meant for a girl with a much smaller bust than mine, and after trying to think how I could wear it anyway for almost a year, I decided to sell it on eBay.

Gosh, I know it’s awfully presumptuous to ask you to tell others about it, but I’m hoping you might think some of your readers would want to know: maybe one of them can wear it, or maybe they’d just like to have a designer prototype, just as some of us might like to have an original painting.

This dress, it is the very attractive green dress from the second episode, the challenge of which it was to design the cotton dress on the theme of the envy. This dress it was the winner for the week.

You may see the dress and bid on it here at the eBay

Manolo says, Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

In Paris, it’s Hammer Time!

Enough with the Pink Already!

Decoding the Body Language of Golden Globe Couples

Posh World Domination

Manolo says, the Manolo’s internet friend the Almost Girl she has emailed the Manolo the announcement about the New York Fashion Week, and the fashion blogging.

State of The Fashion Union: Invitation To All Bloggers

With Fashionweek kicking off the first week of next month in New York, Almost Girl and Fashiontribes thought it would be fun to do something similar to my Black Friday blogging extravaganza. Except this time, in honor of the Fall 06 shows, the theme will be “The State of the Fashion Union.”

Because there’s such a wide variety of us blogging about fashion & lifestyle, the theme is wide open to interpretation. Some ideas could be:

* what fashion means to you
* why fashion is important (or not)
* your take on the shows
* which country produces the strongest design
* etc. etc.

We did a countdown last time, so Fashionweek blogging would begin Friday, January 27th & countdown to Friday, Feb 3rd when NY Fashionweek kicks off, with blogging continuing throughout the week until the end of day on Friday, February 10th.

Lesley Scott at Fashiontribes and myself will collect all of the links and use our blogs as a portal to the fashion content. In essence, it will work exactly like Black Friday Blogging did!

Everyone who participated in Black Friday is again welcome to participate and I encourage anyone who did not participate to get in on the action this time. It is fun to see everyone’s thoughts and for a little personal incentive it really drives traffic and readership.

So please email me Julie Fredrickson and Lesley to get in on the action so we know who is in on the game. Also, whenever you post something new please email us as well so we can get it up on our sites as quickly as possible.

In addition, for extra ease of use Lesley is hosting The Manolo’s carnival the week before Fashionweek (starting January 28th) and I am hosting it the week of Fashionweek. So if you plan on participating in The Manolo’s carnival it is now part of our carnival effort as well!

Manolo says, perversly, since the last time, the Manolo he is now looking forward to the Barcelona Fashion Week

Consider now the offerings of this season.

Argyle Li’l Abner lamp shade.

Velveteen Sherlock Home Boy

Broke Neck Mountain

Manolo says, the Manolo he calls this episode the “Ice Capades Costume of Dread”, in which our young designers they come up with the unattractive, spangly garb for the spunky little skater.

Ugh.

Yes, now that the Manolo he thinks about it, he supposes that someone must design the skating costume, that they do not pop organically from the forehead of Brian Boitano. But the question it is who? The Manolo he had always assumed that it was the overbearing ice-skating stage mother who did this. (Yes, the Manolo he knows all about the Vera Wang, but still the point it holds.)

So, everyday one learns something new. Today, it is that the ice skating costumes they are actually “designed”.

With this in mind, it is clear to the Manolo that this challenge it was specifically constructed to make everyone involved look like the fools. Trust the Manolo it succeeded, succeeded to the point that even the joyously evil Santino was reduced to the sputtering, despondent impotence.

As for the costumes produced by this competition they were uniformly, irredeemably awful.

The delightful Daniel V’s it looked like the cheap lingerie; the Andae’s like it was pulled from the laundry basket of the Grace Jones; the Kara’s faux flapper, whatever, meh; the Chloe like the wild shimmy-shammy artificial Charlie Brown Christmas tree; the Nick’s costume was the lopsided wonder; the Santino’s, in the front it was all Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, in the back it was Junk in the Trunk.

As for the winner and the loser, the Manolo he was sad to see the eternally befuddled Emmett go, not because he didn’t deserve to go, but because he was tossed over the board while wearing the hot pink shirt. Ayyyyyy, the ignominy!

Also, the Manolo he does not know what the Anne Slowey was smoking, but the Emmett’s costume it was not terribly vulgar, not given the stripper on ice standards of the modern ice skating.

The winner Zulema, deserved it because she worked the material in the beautiful and innovative manner. Unfortunately she cut the final product to down to the mons veneris, producing something the Manolo thinks of as the “Virgin Ice Ho”.

Ayyyyyy! The Manolo he wishes to now put this entire episode out of his mind. We shall not mention it again.

Manolo says, once again the Manolo he is receiving many of the requests from his internet friends like this one.

Dear Manolo, I love, love, love your blog, and I love, love, love most of the shoes you feature, but, sadly, I’m one of the poor girls, and cannot afford most of them. Please help me.

The Manolo his advice on the buying of the shoes it has remained the same since he started his humble shoe blog: the poor girl, she must save her moneys and purchase the most super fantastic shoes she can, as the quality of the best shoes, and the level of the enjoyment they provide, they are far superior to that of the shoes of cheapness.

However, the Manolo he knows what it is like to be poor, so poor that you must construct your own super fantastic shoes out of the gently used pork rinds and Slurpee lids you rescued from the dumpster behind the 7-11.

And so the Manolo he has picked some the inexpensive shoes and the pair of the boots from the Franco Sarto that he does not find offensive, indeed that he thinks would be wearable while you accumulate enough of the moneys to buy the true super fantastic shoes.

This shoe, the Intrigue, it is particularly suitable for wearing to the office.

Here is the round toed shoe with the chunky heel that the Manolo finds stylish.

Finally, this low-heeled boot, it is, like many of the Franco Sarto shoes, quite handsome. You would get much use out of this boot.

It is not the secret that the Manolo he thinks that the Franco Sarto produces the shoes that have the good price-to-style-and-quality ratio, things the poor girls should consider as they save for something better.

Manolo says, the Manolo he finally managed to see the last week’s episode of the Project Runway, and even though he knew what the outcome it would be, he was still most amused.

Here then are the few comments about each of the designers and their action in the previous week.

Marla: Good bye to the Marla, your peculiar combination of cluelessness and lack of cluefulness it shall not be missed.

Diana: The Paul Anka he said it best.

I don’t care just what they say
‘Cause forever I will pray
You and I will be as free as the birds up in the trees
Oh, please stay by me Diana

The Manolo he is so sad that the super nerdy Diana she had to go. Yes, she was always confounding the poor Tim Gunn with her futuristic visions of costumes suitable for wearing to the steampunk blimp-ports, and tiny, self-replicating AI robots that keep your jodphurs from falling down, but she was so adorable, like the esoteric, clothes-designing Hello Kitty.

Andrae: The Manolo he is beginning to warm to the Andrae, and his drama queen ways. He has some talent, and he seems very nice, if more than the little spacey/spastic.

Emmett: Is Manolo the only person who has noticed that the Emmett he is beginning to look like the deer in the headlights? The very tall, very well dressed and very polite deer in the headlights.

Zulema: Bravo to the Zulema for designing the beautiful dress in the record time. Mirabile dictu, she does have some talent after all. Of the course, she is still the unpleasant person.

Kara: The Kara, she always seems one sewing machine failure away from having the catatonic breakdown. If this it were the movie Airplane! the other passengers they would be lining up to slap her.

Nick: Manolo he has come to respect the Nick and his talent. He does his best, and it is usually very good.

Chloe: Always good. Boringly good. She will be one of the final three.

Daniel V.: The coolest of the designers. Manolo loves the Daniel V! He is talented, and has his own vision that is fun and youthful. He is confident without being the ego maniac. He is the good listener, and someone who does not panic when the pressure it is on. It is official, the Daniel V he is the Manolo’s new favorite.

Santino: What is there left to say about this unattractive, petty man? He has some wickety-wack talent, although, the more the Manolo sees, the less he thinks Miss Thang is all that. Of the course, any talent the Santino he does have it is almost completely obscured by his insecure, raving meglomania and jealousy.

Manolo says, the Shangri Law they are hosting the next weeks Carnivale of Couture. The topic, it is: Fashion Items You Cannot Live Without.

Manolo says, the dark brown suede and the gold thread make these pumps from the Dolce and the Gabbana cozy and warm, like the leather armchair next to the fire on the cold mid-winter afternoon. They are both elegant and homey, the most unusual and appealing of combinations.