Manolo’s Shoe Blog

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, what with the grass skirt, the flowerly leis, the giant plastic coconuts.

Manolo says, this is one of the reasons why the Manolo loves his readers so very much, because even when they dissent from the official Manolo Party Line, they do so in ways that are interesting, polite, and well-reasoned.

Here, for the example, is the Manolo’s internet friend Sarah commenting upon the Manolo’s outrage with the Steven Madden peoples.

Sorry, I have to go against the grain here.

Ever seen those Suave shampoo commercials? Where two women with gorgeous hair flounce around for thirty seconds, and the announcer informs us that one of them spends a lot for salon products, and the other uses Suave? “If you can’t tell, why should we?”

Seven hundred dollars is an exorbitant price to pay for a mass produced product that you don’t plug into your wall. That it is not even remotely beyond the pale, in fact ‘reasonable’ as far as couture products goes, simply shows how divorced female ideals of conspicuous consumption have been removed from products that provide us value for money.

I remember being shocked when a friend of mine, a professional geisha, told me the average kimono she wore to work cost over ten thousand dollars. Then she actually went into the economics of the kimono industry, explained that every single kimono was a work of handcrafted art which kept dozens of artisans, sometimes the only living remnants of their craft, fed, and which was completely unique and symbolically sound in every detail. I was convinced at this point, and then she said, “Besides, it’s no more than you’d pay for a high-end handbag at some department stores.”

Louboutin’s name is not worth seven hundred dollars. No one’s name is worth seven hundred dollars. Value in fashion is assigned by a very small, very select cadre of people, and those values exist solely to keep a level of stylistic cache unattainable by the masses. Or else, how do you know how chic you are?

Of course, those signifiers fall apart if chicness is widespread, which is the real danger if mass market knockoffs. It is not a matter of protection of intellectual property; haute couture exists to determine the trend points upon which attainable intellectual property will be based, five years down the road. Nor is there anything patentable about patent leather, laces, shoe boots, or round toes. And if you honestly think shoe boots will be au courant long enough to constitute a ‘basic,’ or that any amount of money will make stilettos comfortable or long-lasting…

In summary, I am not offended by Steve Madden.

This is the exemplar of how intelligent and reasonable peoples should disagree! That the Manolo does not agree with this, does not change how happy he is to have received it.

As for what the Manolo believes, the Manolo can do no better than to point you to the replies of his internet friends Ninjarina, Dangster, and especially the Wannbe, who comes closest to expressing the Manolo’s own feelings with this perceptive comment below.

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Manolo says, look what is shambling down the runways this year.

Manolo says, where are the jump suits? The Manolo was promised that the future would include silvery jump suits, not fairly pedestrian bikinis and lycra.

But of the course, this video begs the question: what will the clothes of the future look like?

To which the Manolo answers, who knows? There are not even that many peoples who can predict next years trends, much less those of the distant future.

In 500 years time we could all be immortal, disembodied heads in jars, riding around on giant metallic robots, talking about how great it was when we had bodies, and wishing we could die.

Or, we could be post-apocalyptic cavemen, in which case, fur will make the big come back.

Either way. 50/50 says the Manolo.

P.S. Be certain to stay for the final minute of this video, when things take the turn for the painfully ridiculous.

P.P.S. Many thanks to the Manolo’s friend, the super fantastic Xeni. She is not just the blogger, she is also the internet television star!!!

Manolo says, it is one of the Manolo’s heroes, Dwight Yoakam, wearing the jacket from the late and great Porter Wagoner’s favorite tailor, Manuel of Nashville

Manolo says, the Manolo’s dear internet friends at the Bag Snob have reported the case of the public relations person who became abusive when the blogger did not do what was desired.

We weren’t going to do an editorial on this bag line but have received over a dozen crazy harassment emails from the PR girl representing them so we decided to put it out there so you can stay clear of this line of horribly made and very cheap bags. Kelly first received an email two months ago from Zina Eva’s rep asking to participate in our monthly bag giveaway but after receiving the samples this weekend we decided the bags were not up to Bag Snob par and we couldn’t possibly endorse it let alone give it to our readers. […]

We promptly contacted them and told them we’d return the bags and will not be able to include them in our monthly giveaway but the PR girl turned nasty and started sending us harassment emails with racist overtones. Let’s see, she accused us of using fake last names because our names are English/European yet we don’t look European (Basically non-white people are not allowed to have European surnames according to this genius PR girl) and then she accused us of trying to scam them of $150 (wholesale price) bags?!?!??! How is it a scam if we didn’t want to keep the hideous bags for our giveaway?

This is outrageous behavior, and as counter-productive as anything the Manolo has ever heard of. The P.R. person who sent these emails and her firm should be named and denounced publicly.

No blogger, no person, should ever have to tolerate this sort of abuse for giving his or her honest opinion about the shoddy product.

In fact, once this person and her firm are named, you may be certain that the Manolo will never, ever respond to any press release or email from this firm, and he would suggest that other fashion bloggers likewise boycott them, at least until the most public and groveling sort of apology is issued.

Manolo says, thus far, this has been the very good week for the Manolo. Yesterday, the Manolo’s good friend Linda Grant launched her blog, The Thoughtful Dresser. Today, the Manolo can announce the return to the internet of his friend John D. Erickson, at the weekly blog called The Materialist, which will be the site devoted to the careful study of men’s clothing.

Here is the excerpt from the very smart piece about how big clothing manufacturers have caught onto the power of details.

One of my favorite obsessive-compulsive tendencies has been thrown into a tizzy over the past year or two. It used to be so revealing. I’d be able to tell who made your shirt, or at the very least to what quality level it was made, with a quick glance at the buttonholes. With one glance at your sleeve cuffs, I could also tell the ages of your children and the name of your psychologist. The cut of your suit jacket could have been done by anyone, but the marginal differences in details told me it’s Oxxford! Or those sleeve buttonholes, they told me your checking account balance, and it was like seeing straight through to your soul.

But these days I’m reading everyone wrong. Now manufacturers from the really best ones to the merely mediocre ones know about the right details and have the machinery to make them. For example, can you believe that for a few seconds last week I actually thought my friend Max had outdone himself (once again!) and was wearing an expensive sport shirt by a small producer in Italy, when in fact it was a J. CREW SHIRT that I had watched him purchase–recommended he purchase!–only three weeks prior? I know, it’s awful. But there it was, with a subtly colorful stripe, single-needle side seams, honest-to-God gussets, and buttons that looked like they cost a full Euro or two, wholesale. And it fit him well, that’s the worst part. Made in the People’s Republic of China, it was, retail price something like 70 bucks. A shirt with those tell-all details used to cost at bare minimum $150 just a few years ago. What happened?

It seems to me that interest in men’s clothing has reached a point that manufacturers are racing to include details previously only seen at the highest end of quality. That’s good, of course, because it means more of us get to enjoy the little details at more reasonable prices, even if we don’t really know why they’re there.

But, as they say, you must go and read the whole piece, indeed, the whole blog, you will learn much.

Manolo says, remember these beautiful and unusual Prada Ombre shoes from last season, with the sfumato gradient effect?

It seems that Stuart Weitzman does…

In the coming months you will undoubtedly see more modestly priced shoes with this same look.