Manolo’s Shoe Blog

Manolo says, here is the Manolo’s latest column for the Express of the Washington Post.

Dear Manolo,

I am a mom with active preschool and toddle-aged children, plus a babe in arms. I’m also building an at home business. My primary market is other moms, so I am often meeting potential customers while I’m out and about with the kids. I need to find a shoe that say pulled-together mom/successful business woman that can be worn to the park or zoo. Did I mention that I’m 5’4” and have wide feet?

Laura

Manolo says, it is lamentable, but the only truly suitable outfit for the mother of the young children is something similar to the toxic waste coveralls, cheap clothing that can be incinerated after being soaked in mucus, playground dirt, and partially-masticated arrowroot cookies.

Indeed, it is only with great effort that one can avoid the modern American version of the biohazard suit: the college sweatshirt and mommy jeans.

But, avoid it you must, for you are young and ambitious, and have plans for economic world domination, something that cannot be achieved while wearing such dowdy and dreary clothing.

As in many things, you should take as your model, the redoubtable Martha Stewart, who has perfected the entrepreneurial homemaking millionaire look: pressed and preppy, aggressively comfortable and no-nonsense.

Here is the Prari Cristina, the casually elegant, Italian wedge-heel loafer that would look perfect with jeans or khakis.

Manolo asked, whose shoes?

Manolo answers, it is the Paula Abdul!

Congratulations to the Manolo’s internet friend Kelly T, who was the first to guess the owner of these wonderful shoes.

Manolo asks, whose shoes?

Manolo says, is four and three-quarters inches too high?

In the this case, the Manolo thinks not.

Manolo says, the Spirit Fingers challenges us to identify the Bond girls.

Manolo says, if the NASCAR peoples had made their ridiculous shoes like this, it would have been infinitely more amusing.

This is the Opel Agila Shoe, which as you may see, looks like the front end of the new Opel Agila minicar, and is apparently not much smaller than the car itself.

Of the course, only the shoe, which was unveiled earlier this month at the Shoebaloo shoe store in Amsterdam, comes with this…

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Manolo says, here is the best of the previous week from the Manolosphere.

Diable…

¿Se imaginan a Christian Louboutin tocando la guitarra y desgarrándose en un escenario como Ozzy Osbourne o Iggy Pop?

Mr. Henry…

At these prices, Mr. Henry doesn’t feel that to expect one decent meal is asking too much. It’s an amusement park, after all. When you are hungry, you are rarely amused.

Patri…

A una amante del calzado, denle uds una pasarela para escudriñar, repasar, mirar, admirar….y encontrará curiosidades varias, como las que he ido mostrando desde que finalizaron las Pasarelas para el Otoño Invierno 2008/09.

Twistie…

Who’s Milking the Frog?

Plumcake…

I was filled with loathing at the idea of someone else buying my skirt before I had the chance to strap on William Shatner (there’s a sentence I never expected to get paid for. WS is, of course, the name of my corset) and see if the thing would zip up once I moved my innards around.

Spirit Fingers…

Guess what they got Hugh Hefner for his 82nd birthday?

Francesca…

Ultimately the best thing to do is stand up tall and remember that no one cares that you have love handles as much as you do!

Glinda…

There are many, many soccer moms around here, and I know exactly what they are like.

Raincoaster…

Welcome to Cthulhu-ville, where the overlords are unspeakable, the architecture is non-Euclidean and the natives are eldritch.

Never teh Bride…

I was pretending to work on various projects on the day in question when I heard the unmistakable sound of a largish truck backing into my driveway.

Izzy…

These otherwise normal Hugo Boss dress shoes should make quite the aural statement.

Diablesse…

Tal vez sean los genes y el inevitable factor de ser hija de una gran diva e ícono de la moda, Jane Birkin.

Manolo says, here is the Manolo’s latest column for the Express of the Washington Post.

Dear Manolo,

I am a graduate student, and I will be on the teaching staff for a short history course taught in Rome this summer. The class will involve walking around to monuments and museums, up to six hours each day. I’ll need extremely comfortable shoes, and cannot look like a hobo. Additionally, the professor leading the course strongly recommends not wearing open-toed sandals. Please help.

Lauren

Manolo says, frankly, the Manolo is somewhat perplexed by the professorial injunction against the sandals of open-toedness. Is the professor perhaps worried about foot comfort while walking? Respectable professional appearance for the teaching? The possibility that young Italian men will importune the assistant because she has exposed her alluring graduate student toes?

Whatever the reason, this restriction seems odd, for after all, did not the Romans themselves wear the sandals? And, as the saying goes, when in Rome, do as if the Romans did, especially if the gladiator sandals are super hot this season.

But, graduate students must generally heed the wishes of their professors, and so the Manolo would recommend these, the Stefany 05 from Geox, the exceedingly comfortable shoe that has the technology that “breathes” the sweat away from the foot.

Manolo says, here are the fun and colorful Tory Burch t-strap sandals for your Thursday afternoon enjoyment. Before you know it, summer will be here, and you will want colorful flat sandals that make you feel happy, and these they are emphatically cheerful.