Manolo’s Shoe Blog

Manolo says, Manolo’s very good friend Linda Grant, author of the wonderful piece in the Guardian about the declining standards of dress and comportment, has returned to add more to our very vibrant discussion of this important topic.

I would like to thank those of you who responded so positively to my Guardian piece about declining standards of dress. I believe that dressing appropriately for the occasion is simply a question of good manners, as well as to give ourselves the pleasure of wearing whatever in our wardrobes is best, just as we vary our diet, adorn our homes with nice things, and enjoy a beautiful view. In the past, even the most impoverished families, had garments that they called their ‘Sunday best’ clothes which they wore for special occasions. The dumbing down of dress is in part a product of prosperity, for when a pair of jeans can cost as much as an evening gown, who knows who is expensively dressed?

The morning the article came out, a friend reminded me that at her brother’s wedding, a few years ago, one guest arrived at the reception in shorts. Now the bride and groom were theatre folk, not actors, but a writer and a director, and one sensed that this minor celeb simply felt that the happy couple were simply not important enough to get dressed up for. The true star among the guests, Hugh Laurie (of ‘House’) and his wife were dressed entirely appropriately for a July wedding, she in a hat. As someone in the comments remarked - class, you’ve got it or you haven’t.

Two people who have class are Tizzy and her husband, who, unable to celebrate their wedding anniversary at an expensive restaurant, went to an ordinary one and dressed up anyway, he in a tie and she in a cocktail dress bought on the clearance rack for $9.99. Mr and Mrs Tizzy understand the notion of a memorable occasion. I thought of them last night at a glittering event held here in London, the private view of the new exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum on the Golden Age of Couture. For standing in front of me as we listened to a speech by Ines de la Fressange, once a Chanel model, was a woman who had chosen from her entire wardrobe to wear at this event – jeans and a t-shirt. Mr and Mrs Tizzy, despite their modest income, would, I know, have nonetheless found the prefect outfits to have attended such an occasion. To be well-dressed comes not from the bank balance, but what is inside your own head.

Manolo says, the Manolo’s good friend, the Linda Grant, has written the much needed piece in today’s Guardian about the sloppiness of the modern restaurant patron.

Forty or 50 years ago, when a couple went out to dine the men wore suits, ties (preferably regimental) and shined shoes, and the women would be in cocktail dresses, heels and even mink stoles. The dress code of an establishment was directly linked to the numbers of pieces of cutlery at each place setting. Judging by the films of the period, there might also be a small dancefloor, and a band.

There was always the suspicion that restaurants imposed dress codes so that oiks would be prevented from getting any further than the front door. Now you can wear anything you like. You can blame it on the fact that eating out is no longer classified as a special occasion. Or perhaps that the price of meals is so astronomical, in London at least, that diners can no longer afford expensive clothes. Or that the competition between proliferating numbers of restaurants is so intense that owners can’t afford to place restrictions on who can and can’t come in. And for celeb diners, who can always get a table at a full restaurant at 8pm, there are no rules.

[…]

This change extends beyond restaurant etiquette - no one goes to the theatre or opera in evening dress any more. The outfits photographed on the red carpet have no occasion except the red carpet. Apart from weddings, when are we allowed to dress up? What are all those clothes doing in the shops, if we have no place any more to wear them because of the relentless dumbing down of dress? It is a depressing experience to sit in a beautiful room eating delicious food and see at the next table a party dressed in beige fleeces and Cornish pasty shoes. Surely going out is all about dressing up, about making an effort, about suiting the clothes to the activity?

This is one of the more lamentable changes of the past three decades, this slow inexorable slide of the general population into sweat pants and crocs.

Yes, right now you are going out to eat at the fancy restaurant in the pressed bluejeans and polo shirt.

“It is okay,” you say to yourself, “at least I am dressed better than this restaurant’s celebrity owner…” Who has just at that moment come shambling out of the kitchen wearing the scruffy beard, the orange crocs, the scarf made out of sausage, and what appears to be no pants, just the dirty apron.

And so, one more step toward the slippery slope has been taken.

Next thing you know, you have ditched the polo and pressed jeans for the tattered cutoffs and the stupid/ironic-ironic/stupid hipster t-shirt that you pulled from the dirty laundry hamper moments before leaving the house.

So what if you are the 45-year-old senior vice president at the bank, you only live once, eh? No reason to put on the old monkey suit, not when everyone else looks like orangutans.

The Linda Grant is so completely and terribly right, we are losing our occasions to dress up.

Manolo says, the platforms are out. It must be true, because the USA Today has said so.

It took one swift kick from the new shoe trend — ballet flats — to topple platforms from their perch.

“Quite simply, customers have had enough of high heels,” says Robert Burke, president and founder of luxury consulting firm Robert Burke Associates. “Flats seem young and fresh.”

It certainly helps that they’re easier to wear than the ankle-wrenching wedge, and they can look elegant or coquettish with this year’s empire-waisted dresses, hot pants and capris. And despite a more casual work attitude, flip-flops and sandals flunk many office dress codes, but flats won’t.

“As for the customer older than 40, platforms never really were popular this time around,” says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at the NPD Group. “But offer women ballet flats, and they’ll take them in a second. Flats are just so comfortable. If I gave you permission to wear slippers to work, you would, wouldn’t you?”

Of the course, this is not news to the readers of the Shoe Blog, as the Manolo was predicting just this eventuality in February of this year.

Although, to judge from the height and the color and the excessive strappiness we have moved from the restrained and classical period of the platforms into the final decadant period before they leave the scene for the few years. You have until perhaps the end of the year to enjoy them.

And thus it came to pass.

Manolo says, many of the Manolo’s internet friends have been emailing him the link to this story.

It is 8 o’clock on a serene blue morning in Beverly Hills and Dr Ali Sadrieh, a podiatrist, has just performed a 45-minute operation on a client, cutting a section of bone out of her toe to shorten it. She was awake during surgery, watching a film; next week Sadrieh will do the same thing to the second toe on the other foot. There was nothing medically wrong with the toes, but his patient didn’t like the way they protruded over the lip of her high-heeled Manolo Blahniks.

Welcome to the wilder shores of La-La Land, where cosmetic surgery has finally travelled the full length of the female form. […]

Feet are the new frontier: our legs are all waxed and tanned now, but look where they end: in a scrubland of hard heels, yellowing nails, bumps, lumps and toe hair. And everything is on show: the ascendancy of the shoe designer has strapped us into whip-thin sandals and vertiginous heels, at once revealing our imperfections and aggravating them: is that an incipient bunion there? A touch of toe-besity? In America the high priests of podiatry are offering salvation.

Frankly, the Manolo doubts the widespread popularity of this trend, simply because of the appearance of this B-List celebrity foot.

The bunion in these fetish shoes belongs to that dreary spotlight hound, the Posh Spice.

You may be assured that if she–the connoisseur of plastic surgery–has not yet had the feet operated upon it is because she has not yet thought it fashionable.

Of course, this is not to say that one should not worry about the foot beauty, only that there are less drastic measures to beautify the foot, measures which stop short of surgery.

Manolo says, here from the Daily Mail is that saucy trollop the Victoria “Posh” Beckham wearing the ridiculous and dangerous looking spikey shoes.

And thus, with this picture, the Manolo now officially declares 2007,

The Year of the Fetish Shoe.

Forget for now the beautiful, elegant, and stylish shoes, and wear only those shoes which emphatically say to the public “the wearer of these shoes may be hired to satisfy your more outré desires.”

Five and the half inch stiletto heels? The height of fashion!

Weird dominatrix boots? Wear them to the red carpet!

Bizarre and clunky pony-play platforms ? Hottest shoe of the Fall!

It is all too much and too ridiculous, but do not worry, dear friends of the Manolo, this fashion moment shall pass.

Manolo says, here is yet another article about this year’s Super Duper Hottest-Hippest Shoe!!!!, the Yves Saint Laurent Tribute. (About which the Manolo has already written.)

YOU’LL fall head over heels. Maybe literally.

The must-have shoe for spring is the “Tribute” from Yves Saint Laurent, adorned with a towering 5 1/2-inch heel. Sold out in most New York retailers, it’s one of the tallest high-fashion shoes ever produced - yet celebrities such as Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez and Gwen Stefani can’t wait to walk at elevations usually reserved for Las Vegas dancers and Vivid Video actresses.

And who among us would not wish to look like the porn actress?

Of the course, this has not kept the slavering masses and their enablers in the press from enthusing in the breathless voices.

“You’re not going to feel sexier in another shoe,” says Chris Frey, accessories director at Lucky magazine. “It’s one of those things you wear when you’re jumping into a cab, going to the event, and jumping out of a cab. I have a shelf life of about two hours in a shoe like this.”

Frey says the shoe’s insane sex appeal isn’t just about the height, but also the shape and style. Plus, she thinks there’s something confident, gutsy and cool about a girl who can get that high.

“I think what’s so cool about it is we’ve been seeing platforms for so many seasons and they’re not going away. But YSL sexied it up by adding the stiletto,” she says. “Plus it’s a Mary Jane style that’s so hot this season with an ankle strap that’s not too high on the ankle so it still makes your leg look super-long.”

For Frey, they’re also inspirational.

“It’s a lunge-inducing shoe because you want to wear the shortest skirt possible with them,” she says. “It’s like a gym membership for a year in a shoe, because as soon as you put them on you feel five pounds thinner.”

And fifty IQ points dumber.

It is not the bad shoe in the shorter versions, but this excessively tall one is just silly.

Manolo says, from the American Digest comes news of the retrospective of one of the hottest fashion trends of the last half of the century…Toaster Helmets!

A magnificent fashion show recreates the colourful history of the toasterhelmet on the catwalk, starting with the early experimental and functional helmets, going through the extravagant models of the 60s and ending with the well known designhelmets of the past decade. As a special feature young and promising designers show their latest creations. Not to be missed for fashionwatchers and others who want to meet the trend for this summer!

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, many of the Manolo internet friends who made the predictions were late to the Carnivale of the Couture, and so the Manolo he will now provide the links to their websites.

The Kim of the I Am Pretty NYC, she predicts that the Blue is the New Black, but does so in the manner that makes the Manolo both think and laugh.

The Almost Girl she has posted the usual erudite and very well written pensée on the topic of the conspicuous consumption, one which predicts the end of the logo brand.

The Italian blog the Red Apple predicts that this year we will all be following the examples of the Bridget Bardot and the Jackie O, to which the Manolo asks, when have we not?

The topic of the next Carnivale of the Couture it is “Fashion Don’ts that Make You Crazy.” The Manolo he will be collecting the links later this week for the publication of the Carnivale one week from today, Monday the 16th of the January.