Manolo says, people who do not give credit were credit is due.

The Manolo has just noticed the following post at Jezebel: How to Accept a Compliment.

Kate Harding points out a skill that often escapes even the most accomplished women: accepting compliments without self-deprecation. So how to acknowledge your awesomeness without being an ass?

Naturally, the Manolo’s interest was piqued by this post and the link to Kate Harding’s site, for the Manolo knows that his own Miss Plumcake covered this very topic early last week, with her post, Five Great Lessons from Finishing School: Pt 2 Merci Mercy Me (ugh).

For some reason we are just not taught how to respond graciously to a compliment.

It

drives

me

INSANE.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve told a girlfriend she looked fantastic only to have her automatically touch her hair or make a face and respond “No, I look awful.”

It takes all my generations of breeding and counting to ten not to snatch her bald and say “Listen, I’ve got better taste than you do. I’ve ALWAYS had better taste than you do, so when I say you look nice, shut up and say ‘thank you’ because people pay me a LOT of money for my approval and it doesn’t come easily.”

And while I understand women are conditioned to deflect any compliment because GOD FORBID a woman think highly of herself (or worse, actually be BETTER than someone else) denying a honestly-paid compliment is one thing and one thing only:

Rude.

Okay two things: rude and stupid.

Wait, three: rude and stupid and annoying.

When you fail to accept a compliment graciously, it’s an insult to the person who paid it.

And yet, nowhere was our brilliant Miss Plumcake mentioned by either the Jezebel people (excusable as they are not part of the so-called Fatosphere) or by Kate Harding (not excusable, for she is supposedly the great champion of the Fatosphere).

Common courtesy and blogger etiquette of long-standing says we must always acknowledge our debts to other bloggers. Thus, it is ironic, is it not, that the blogger blogging about etiquette would so egregiously ignore it?

Update 4/28/10: Kate Harding has explained the circumstances to the satisfaction of the Manolo, followed by apologies from all parties involved, and the return of mutual comity.

Manolo says, Miss Plumcake taking ABC television to task for refusing to run the sexy, plus-sized Lane Bryant advertisement.

Manolo says, here are the few links which may perhaps amuse…

It’s like a Victorian museum come to life, with Rococo Elements, Alice in Wonderland and other fairytales thrown together with some Gypsy spells and a sprinkling of fairy dust, before being breathed into life as a curio shoppe set in the heart of a forest.

And you thought New Coke was the worst marketing mistake ever made by the Coca-Cola company.

How to wear animal prints.

Espadrille Wedges!

Manolo says, here are the few items which may perhaps amuse…

While the recession may not have ended the luxury industry’s obsession with celebrity associations, at the very least, brands are choosing their spokesmodels more thoughtfully.

By applying hand dying and hand stitching techniques to his leather working, I see Goodwin venturing down an artisanal shoe route that not many shoe designers venture down.

Natalie Hartley Wears

Pitched roof ceilings and sliding glass doors contribute to an expansive sense of space. The home is calmly and tastefully decorated with neutral simple furniture that suits the era of the house.

Manolo says, oh noes! Mr. Henry had declared himself, Not Hungry.

Manolo says, perhaps Miss Plumcake can help the Manolo rebuild Lindsay Lohan.

Walk gracefully in the rain.

I know, I know, it doesn’t make any sense, but trust me. Shoulders back, head up (like that little neck scrunch is going to do a darn thing to keep you dry anyway) determined –or at least not miserable– look and purposeful steps.

The moral of the story is this:

If you can walk with dignity in the rain, you can walk with dignity anywhere.

And now you must go read the whole thing.

Manolo says, today begins the American release of our friend Linda Grant‘s magnificent new book, The Thoughtful Dresser.

Make no mistake, if, like the Manolo, you are the reasonably intelligent person who likes the clothes, and the shoes, and thinking about why people wear what they wear, you will adore this book.

Here is the brief selection…

In the summer of 1971, I had perfect shoes. They were pink suede wedges with suede ties that did up round my ankles like Grecian sandals. They were the most beautiful shoes I have ever owned, and I was twenty and had no idea that in all the years to come I would forever be trying to find their replacement, as if they were a love tragically lost, or the Platonic ideal of shoes, or the shoes God had made especially for me. Whatever I was wearing, I only had to look down at my feet to know that they were encased in pink suede.

[...]

I wore the shoes every single day, until they fell apart and I dropped them in the kitchen bin in an act of affirmative confidence in the future: that I was only twenty and that for the rest of my long life there would be other shoes — but there was no next pair of shoes, none as good as these. Never again would I have a pair as beautiful and wearable. It must have been in part their pinkness, but also the wedge and the thongs they were tied with which all combined to make them stand outside time, outside the era they came from. The point about those shoes is that I coudl wear them right now, today. So the past goes on tormenting you, the memory of brief intense friendship with shoes — yes, exactly like a lost love.

Ayyyy! A la recherche du chaussures perdu!

Of course, it is only natural that this passage would appeal to the Manolo, for as the Manolo has long noted in his own writings, the quest for the perfect item of clothing, the perfect pair of shoes, is exactly congruent with the search for the divine. They are one and the same, expressing as they both do the innate human desire for the transcendent.

But more than that, such quests are also the reaffirmation of life.

This is something Linda Grant expresses wonderfully in her book, that far from being the frivolous frivolity, the shopping for and wearing of clothing brings pleasure, brings joy, brings wholly human satisfaction, which moreover has the power to repair and restore one’s soul.

Out of suffering comes the demand for pleasure. When we have suffered we do not care less about clothes, but more. To love clothes is to embrace life in all its joyous variety, even if all you ever do is turn the pages of a magazine and long for a fairyland, crave couture ballgowns you will never own. We all need daydreams.

So you must read this book — part autobiography, part biography, part history, part manifesto, the curious combination to be sure, but completely brilliant and utterly insightful. It will convince, as few other works can, that thinking about clothes is the ancient and worthwhile, indeed noble, human activity.

P.S. The Thoughtful Dresser Blog.

Manolo says, the Manolo is nearly hyperventilating with excitement to announce that this week’s special guest blogger will be the sassy, super fantastic, superstar of the red carpet interviews, Steven Cojocaru, better known as Cojo!

The Manolo has long been the fan of the Cojo, not just because he is hilariously funny and warm, but also because he is perhaps one of the most perceptive fashion advisers and critics of the past decade, and now, to add to his lengthy list of achievements, he is blogging up some of the sharpest and wittiest celebrity commentary on the intertubes.

And so all week long the Manolo and the Cojo will be posting on each others blogs, so you must visit frequently, as it is certain to be much fun.

Manolo says, our friend Raincoaster has pictures from the fantastic Scottish fashion show.

Manolo says, the editors of the fancy lady fashion rags are in the uproar.

“The Internet has allowed people to be ‘couch critics.’ You could sit anywhere in the world, you could sit in Oklahoma, look at a fashion show on the Internet, you could post your thoughts . . . the Internet has made fashion a lot more democratic in this way. You know, Tavi, like her or don’t like her, she’s 13 — whether she even really writes it herself, the idea that she has gotten all this attention, it’s because of the Internet, not because of anything else. [At Elle] we’re talking about people who have really done this their entire lives, who’ve really covered fashion, who really understand fashion . . . understand the history of fashion, can critique it from a point of view, [can] actually relay it back to something they’ve experienced and understand. I don’t think Tavi even knows what happened five years ago. She has every right to [post] on the Internet, she has every right to have the following she has . . . everybody can follow her and find her creative or funny or quirky or inspiring, but the idea is there are people here [at Elle] who do know the history and I think that Anne [Slowey] stresses this. It’s absolutely true: if you don’t know what you’re talking about, then do you really have the credibility to talk about it?”

What is that you say, bitter professional fashion lady? The internet has democratized your fashion reportage?

Here is the Manolo, writing many years ago.

At the same of the time, the medias have become more democratic, and the new media tools, especially the blog have given ordinary peoples– shoe lovers, teenaged girls, dandies, stylish college professors, and anyone who has the computer– the tools to talk about the style and the fashion to the wider audience, to become the fashion and style critics.

Many of these new critics they are not only passionate about the fashion, but they are also wonderfully knowledgeable and entertaining writers. And, as the consequence, they are gaining the audience for their writings on the internet, joining their voices to the voices of those who have been annointed fashion critics by the newspapers and the fashion magazines.

[...]

This it is nothing short of miraculous, and it is why the Manolo is excited about the future, about the possibilities of discovering the new talent, the new views, the new ways of looking at fashion and style. It is also why the Manolo is the greatest supporter of the fashion blogging, because he belives that this process of democratization it cannot but result in good things.

Fashion reportage is not the nuclear rocket surgery, capable of being performed only by exquisitely-trained, officially-approved astronaut-surgeons.

It is, at its base, the giving of opinion mingled with the moderate helping of rather easily acquired fashion-specific history and training. And while experience and the development and refinement of the eye have great value, they are not the only criteria by which we judge the success of our critics and fashion reporters.

What distinguishes the best of the fashion reporters and critics, such as Susy Menkes and the marvelous Tavi, is not their elaborate training and the “dues paid” (or “unpaid”) but their peculiar eye and amusing ways of expressing themselves. And this is what we desire most of all from our critics, amusement and insight and perhaps the ability to translate the emotions and ideas of fashion into words, so that even when we do not agree with them, we still like to see what they have to say. (And the Manolo does not often agree with Tavi but he nonetheless adores her, because she is the hyper-observant oddball who writes beautifully and makes the Manolo laugh.)

As for the contention that there is much dross in fashion blogging, the Manolo can only answer yes, it is true. But, have you seen the latest cover of (insert name of prominent fashion magazine here)? How much of that magazine’s content is simply recycled fluff with glossy pictures?

The sad fact is that the world is filled with dross, the fact which makes finding the gold (the best bloggers and the best writers) so much more satisfying.

Of the course, this is all the big tempest in the tiny teacup, because all of the Elle editors in the world cannot put Dumpty Humpty back together again, no matter how much they complain about his broken pieces at special discussion panels convened for that purpose.

Manolo says, there is the interview with the Manolo (and the few other shoe bloggers) over at the new men’s shoe blog, The Shoe Buff.

Here is the sample..

TSB: To what degree does your love of women’s footwear seep into men’s footwear?

Manolo: Manolo loves all the shoes! The Manolo’s love of women’s shoes is the powerful aesthetic impulse, driven as it is by the desire to recognize and celebrate beauty in the particular. While the Manolo’s love of men’s shoes is more concrete and acquisitive. Nothing is as satisfying as wearing beautifully made, bespoke shoes, whose appeal is subtle and more personal for the Manolo than his love of women’s shoes, which is more intellectual and abstract.

Manolo says, Miss Plumcake has, in her usual retiring way, ignited the firestorm.