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.

Manolo asked, whose shoes?

Manolo answers, it is the Martha Stewart!

Congratulations to the Manolo’s internet friend Beth, who got the correct answer to this most difficult Whose Shoes, even before the Manolo gave his final hinting!

Manolo says, this is turning out to be one of the toughest Whose Shoes ever!

The Manolo will not yet tell you the name of this person, instead he will only note that she is tall, not young, and quite famous, perhaps even infamous.

P.S. The extra hint…It is not Camilla Parker Bowles. In the fact, this person is the American, indeed, the American icon, of sorts.

Manolo says, the recent appearance in England of the tiny little president of France, M. Sarkozy, has started the mania for the high heels shoes for the mens.

The male heel has risen to the top of the footwear charts. And all because of ‘The Sarkozy Effect’. In the wake of the State visit by the vertically-challenged, 5ft 5in French President – whose towering, 5ft 9in, ex-model wife, Carla Bruni, wears flatties to try and minimise the height discrepancy – some British males are turning to heels to avoid similar embarrassment when out with their partners.

The department store chain Selfridges has noted a surge in sales of men’s shoes with ‘stack’ heels of up to 5 cm or two inches. The store’s head of menswear, David Walker-Smith said, in the past, Cuban heels or cowboy boots were favoured as casual wear with jeans.

‘‘Now the pinstriped businessman wants to up his game by adding to his height.” Shoe brands such as Jeffrey West and Patrick Cox now provide heels of up to 5cm instead of the customary one and a half cm.

Trust the Manolo, the mythical man of business who wishes to “up his game” by wearing the stacked heel shoes, will indeed not only look taller, but also ridiculous. Few things indicate male insecurity as forcefully and as humorously as tacky elevator shoes. One might as well resort to the Ron Popeil hair-in-the-can as the cure for baldness as stacked heels as the cure for shortness.

Worst of all, the head of state who wears the platform shoes risks unflattering comparison to this shorty tyrant.

Manolo asks, whose shoes?

Manolo says, far be it from the Manolo to criticize anyone’s accent, but…

P.S From the Manolo’s internet friends at the Circus Hour

Manolo says, it is Monday, but in your heart it is Saturday night, and you are dressed to dance, in the short silky dress and these beautiful, strappy, bejeweled sandals from DSquared2!

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

Raincoaster…

Remember Tang? It’s what we had before we had SunnyD. Old people remember Tang, and the thing we remember best about it is that the astronauts had Tang in their space ships, and so we wanted it.

Patri…

La primera vez que los ví no fueron de mis favoritos, recuerdo que desde el principio los llamé “andamios” porque su tacón me recordaba a esas estructuras que hay en el exterior de los edificios y creo que ha fuerza de verlos decidí cogerles cariño y hasta decir ¡Qué bonitos!

Mr. Henry…

Walt Disney World is America’s #1 tourist destination – a vast Orwellian shining city in the swamp brimming with bratty English schoolchildren spitting insults at cowed, permissive parents, with tattooed teenagers trying desperately to pretend they aren’t walking beside uncool parents, and with grinning sunburned, foot-weary pilgrims of pleasure plodding on and on and on.

Glinda…

There is all this hand-wringing about how computers and video games are ruining our kids, but my son loves nothing more than playing in the mud. I wish I was kidding.

Twistie…

I was in my twenties when I first heard of wedding planners. My first thought was ‘what a ridiculous idea!’ because it never occurred to me that anyone would need someone to tell them how to get married.

Francesca…

The pickup skirt is “in” these days among many designers.

Plumcake…

Last night as I was glamorously soaking my feet in my equally glamorous beige Rubbermaid dishtub full of epsom-salted water and rose oil (ignore the old-folk associations, epsom salt soaks are brilliant)…

Spirit Fingers…

Despite all the attention and service being lavished on him, why does Quentin Tarantino look so unimpressed at his joint birthday bash with Fergie?

Diable…

Es mil veces más chic llevar un Marc Jacobs (de carne y hueso) que un chihuahua

Never teh Bride…

If you, like me, have more books than you know what to do with but aren’t willing to donate them to a books for teachers program, then you may just have more than a passing interest in bookshelves.

Isidore Gallant…

Robert Redford costumed himself as an old-fashioned school teacher…

Diablesse…

Los amantes del trabajo de Scott Schuman, mejor conocido como The Sartorialist, podrán satisfacer sus bajas pasiones y placeres culpables con el suplemento especial dedicado a las modelos dentro de la majestuosa niña mimada de Carine Roitfeld, VOGUE París.

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

Dear Manolo,

My 30-year-old son is getting married in May, and my daughter-in-law-to-be has requested a Mother-Son dance at the reception. I’ll be wearing a light-green, almost ankle-length dress. What would you recommend for a very petite woman of a certain age?

Kay

Manolo says, Ayyyy! Cuidado! The wedding preparation season is upon us!

Herds of demented, carnivorous brides-to-be are now stalking the countryside, rampaging in search of the perfect wedding favor, besieging the manufacturers of jordan almonds with angry questions, and generally making intolerable the lives of photographers, florists, caterers, and their close relatives.

Happily, as long as she is not the meddlesome type, the Mother of the Groom is usually exempt from the wrath of the bridezilla. Her role in festivities is limited to being escorted down the aisle before the ceremony, and the Mother-and-Son dance at the reception.

Of the course, if the bridezilla has (as she inevitably will) seized control of the music programming, the poor Mother of the Groom may find herself having to learn the steps to Missy Elliot’s “Get Ur Freak On”. But, this is the small price to pay to see one’s son happily married.

Here is the Emily from Kate Spade, the pretty, mid-heel, strappy silver sandal.

Manolo says, the Manolo is the big fan of the Bernardo’s sandals and this one, the Mistral, with the faux snake skin t-strap, is tres chic, and not at all impractical.