Manolo’s Shoe Blog

Manolo says, it is not often the Manolo forcefully decries something from the hand of his muse, Miuccia Prada, but this kitten-heel flex pump from Miu Miu is just such the item.

There is no other way to describe this, except, it is just dumb.

Yes, undoubtedly in the wonderfully original and byzantine mind of Miuccia Prada, there is some sort of conceptual-y, ironic-y, post-modern-y thing going on, but here, in the execution of this idea, there is only dumbness.

This shoe could only be worn by the grossest of congenitally ignorant attention seekers. (Insert name of Hollywood starlet here.) Otherwise it is simply unwearable, and indeed, it pains the Manolo to even gaze upon it.

What is perhaps the most troubling for the Manolo is that only last week, the Manolo was praising one of the most beautiful shoes he has ever seen, the truly sublime Prada Corallo Oro sandals.

How is it possible that the same person could be responsible for both items?

And now, the Manolo must go lay down in the darkened room, the cool compress upon his forehead.

Manolo says, you have to admire the model’s ability to keep the straight face.

Manolo says, ayyyyy! The best challenge yet, to grab the giant fistfuls of second-rate but popular candies and candy merchandises in the candy store and to transform this mass of junk into the fashion.

This was the sort of challenge that made the original Project Runway so delightful, and not something about which Michael Kors could ecstatically shout “super commercial!!!!”

For the Manolo, the best part of the evening was that the likable chubster Chris, over whom the Manolo had begun to despair, showed that he could produce the completely wearable, and yet also sophisticated, mature, and attractive outfit.

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Manolo says, Ayyyyy! It is the fabulous Suzy Menkes interviewing Donatella Versace!

At first watching, you will not be able to pay attention to what they are saying. You will just revel in detail: the accents, the hair styles, the candles! It is all beyond magnificent and odd and wonderful.

At the second watching, when you are less distracted and can listen closely, you will realize that here are two smart women taking about interesting things.

P.S. From the Lauren Goldstein Crowe at the Fashion, Inc.

Manolo says, if you are not reading Linda Grant’s marvelous new blog, The Thoughtful Dresser you are missing out on important and hilarious discussions such as this one.

A few years ago, I was having lunch at Moro in Clerkenwell Market with the then women’s page editor of the Guardian. Sitting at the next table were a group of adoring acolytes hanging on the every word of a flat bloke with a blonde bristly head like a pig, dressed in combats encasing thighs which oozed like over-ripe Camembert sluggishly running off the edge of his chair.

That, said my lunch companion, is Alexander McQueen.

And a spasm of pure rage passed through me. Who was this fat bastard to tell women that they were obese if they couldn’t fit into a size 10? To make clothes that half the population couldn’t wear? I am tired of fat men telling non-skeletal women that they don’t exist. Granted, McQueen, like Lagerfeld, with the assistance of the finest trainers money can buy and no obligation to prepare family meals three times a day, have slimmed down, or in the case of Lagerfeld, turned himself into his own corpse, but fashion is full of fat men (sorry Alber, I really love you in every other way) giving normal-sized women an inferiority complex.

This made the Manolo laugh out loud.

Although, at the same time, the Manolo is sympathetic to the fashion designers, for as he has noted in the past, many fashion designers are quite unattractive, and thus they are obsessed with the most conventional notions of beauty and proportion, even as they are filled with self-loathing for their own appearance.

It is difficult to desire physical beauty so intensely and yet have it denied to you, as the Manolo, from his own personal circumstances, can tell you.

Manolo says, this is what you get when you use too much honeysuckle nectar shampoo.

Manolo says, exuberant, ridiculous color is in!

Manolo says, speaking of the Miuccia and her ways, the Manolo could not help but notice that the latest Prada show in Milan presented shoes that swerved wildly away from the previous look. Remember those beautiful, restrained, and unusual Prada sfumato shoes which we were all so recently praising?

These are emphatically different…

Organic and whimsical, these shoes are not unpleasing, although they have perhaps too much of the Magical Shoe Fairy Cottage about them for the taste of the Manolo.

However, he appreciates the effort.

More to his taste are these colorful shoes below…

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Manolo asked, whose shoes?

Manolo answers, it is our muse, Miuccia!

Congratulations to the Manolo’s internet friend Miranda, who was the first to guess whose shoes.

She is adorable, and those calves are so muscular!