Not our beloved Maestro Manolo Blahnik. For the man of such delicate and whimsical sensibilities, when he hears the words “cage sandal”, he thinks of birds, and of making the dainty bronze containers for your tiny parakeet toes.

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Or else, he uses brilliant blue satin to swaddle your lower extremities in Bird of Paradise color!

Ayyy! Such beautiful shoes!

Naturally, we shall celebrate this holy day with feasts in the Maestro’s honor, toasts to his continued good health, and shoes!

Truly, we are not worthy!

The problem is that the conversation keeps floating away. “Are shoes so important?” he asks. “Really? If I was a woman, I would be dressed in the same thing for a month and just change my hat and gloves. Maybe my shoes too; yes, I see what you mean but, really, it’s jewels that change an outfit. And I do love gloves. And I adddore hats. There are toooo many shoes now. I always tell the children,” – Blahnik is an honorary professor at the Royal College of Art and the “children” are his students – “‘Don’t do shoes! Do hats!’ And the shoes are so strange, so vulgar. I hate these platforms that are all over the place today; they are all about grabbing attention. They are suburban! I never do a platform. Well, I did, in the 1970s, but that was a bad experience.”

[...]

“I detest this period of fantasy we were in where you had something for three seconds and then you threw it away,” he says, opening his eyes wide in horror. “The last few years have been a nightmare! It’s one thing to have a dream, but this was overkill! I was in Los Angeles last year, because they were giving me that award where they can spit on you and stomp on you. What’s it called? A star on the Walk of Style?” He means the Rodeo Drive Walk of Style, a series of plaques awarded to fashion and style legends that are embedded into a Beverly Hills pavement. “Yes, the Walk of Style. They asked me who I wanted to give me the award: Chloë Sevigny? I said, ‘No, I don’t get her.’ Lucy Liu? Oh, she was divine, I looooove oriental girls. Do you love oriental girls? And she was wearing something by [Givenchy designer] Riccardo Tisci, who is my favourite boy – what were we talking about?”

In the humble opinion of the Shoeblogger, this is one of the best articles ever written about the Maestro Manolo Blahnik. You must go read the whole thing.

Manolo says, here is the short interview with the maestro di tutti maestri, himself, Manolo Blahnik. After seeing this you will have to agree that he is absolutely delightful.

Oy, but the news from the world of the economy is bad, with the bankruptcies, and the failures, and the bailouts, and the falling markets, and the fat-gato bankers having to cut back to lighting their cigars with the Ulysses S’s instead of the Benjamins.

Still, it could be worse, you (and the Manolo) still have the desks. You are not out on the street, selling wormy apples from the wooden handcart. And you still have the internet, yes?

And, thank goodness for the interwebs, for they can bring us pictures of shoes. And, now more than ever we require the curative power of shoes, beautiful, happy, cheerful, wonderful shoes!

Look! From the Maestro Manolo Blahnik, purple!

Do they not turn your frown downside up?

So fun, so festive, so frivolous.

Athough..perhaps to yourself, you are saying, “Manolo have you not heard that there is the Recession on? And $800, it is is horrifically excessive for the pair of purple sandals, no?”

Indeed, the Manolo understands that perhaps the money is tight, and that even in the best of times you would not spend so much on such shoes, however beautiful.

And, yet, just because you cannot now buy such shoes, does not mean you cannot look and dream of the day when you can.

Indeed, even in the greatest depth of the Great Depression, when your brother could not spare the dime, Fred Astaire would still put on his top hat and dance lightly across the movie screens, entertaining us with scenes of luxury and frivolity and lightness.

But enough of this! Look, Red!

And, Fuchsia!

For the humble shoeblogger, however, this was the section that he found most gratifying.

Can we talk about shoe etiquette — when to wear or not wear certain shoes? Like, can you wear satin during the day?

Yes, I think so. I don’t think there are rules any longer. Coming from England where all things work . . . daytime, night, it all works.

I’m proper, I like to have a pump for evening. White shoes are for a wedding or daytime in summertime when it’s hot and shimmering, yes. In the winter, if you’re going to some kind of resort like Aspen, you can also wear them. I mean, why not?

Ayyyy! The Maestro Manolo Blahnik is in agreement with the humble Manolo the Shoeblogger, who has said many times that the white shoes are acceptable after the Day of Labor.

And here, in honor of this, the Shoeblogger give you the Maestro’s classic Carolyne mid-heel halter pump, in beautiful white satin.

Manolo says, gaze upon these beautiful flowery sandals from the atelier of the Maestro Manolo Blahnik and contemplate the arrival of spring, which at this minute seems so very far away.

Fashion criticism has long been the exclusive realm of an insular band of journalists who traveled the big runway shows in Paris, Milan and New York and seemed to speak their own esoteric language. But the Met’s new exhibit, “Blog.mode Addressing Fashion,” is inviting anyone with an Internet connection to critique the clothes on display. With its new blog, blog.metmuseum.org/blogmode/, which went up this week, the august museum is also acknowledging that traditional fashion criticism is over.

The Manolo has been talking about this very thing, the democratization of fashion and fashion reportage and criticism for more than three years now.

The article continues.

“There’s a whole new field out there,” says Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s curator. He decided last summer to turn a retrospective of important garments acquired by the museum since 2000 into a three-way conversation of sorts between curator, designer and outside observers. “We wanted to further the practice of fashion interpretation and appreciation,” he says.

The exhibit features 65 garments arranged mostly chronologically, from a circa-1730 British waistcoat to Mr. Theyskens’s ballgown from a 2007 Nina Ricci collection. It contains work from prominent designers like Vivienne Westwood, Comme des Garçons’ creative director, Rei Kawakubo, and Donna Karan. [...]

In the middle of the exhibit, a “blog bar” invites viewers to post their own thoughts on the clothes. Curators decided to invite anyone to post comments on the blog after noticing over the past year and a half that fashion blogging is gaining momentum and respect. As influential blogs garner large audiences and advertisers shift ad spending to the Internet, designers and retailers are also beginning to view the medium as a new opportunity to reach people. [...]

Many bloggers are “cultivated amateurs,” Mr. Koda said this week, while admiring the 18th-century red wool waistcoat. “I do not think bloggers will change the direction of fashion, but they can inform our interpretation of objects.”

The exhibit also illustrates how the Internet is making high-brow cultural institutions more accessible to a mainstream audience. “Curators aren’t these godlike creatures,” Mr. Bolton says.
[fashion]

The Costume Institute’s democratic approach to criticism surprises some industry experts. “What is astonishing to me is that the fashion industry is allowing these people to become important,” says David Wolfe, creative director at the Doneger Group, a New York retail consultancy.

Here is the person who does not understand how the new media works.

The fashion industry can neither “allow” nor nor not allow the fashion bloggers to become important. It is not within their ability to restrict us from writing what we think about various things. Nor is it within their power to keep many of us from becoming popular voices about matters sartorial. And if we become popular voices, then they, the fashion nabobs, must pay attention to us and our readers, for if they do not, they risk alienating their market.

Thus the importance of the fashion bloggers is entirely dependent upon whether or not they are being read, and has very little to do with the acceptance or non-acceptance of the fashion industry.

The good news, however, is that there are many in the fashion world who understand what is going on.

But some designers find it refreshing. “Fashion is supposed to be this exclusive world that nobody has access to,” says Hussein Chalayan, who uses elements of technology in his designs, such as a remote-control-powered dress in the show. But the Internet is changing that perception. “At the end of the day when you have a critic write about your work, it is just one person who is supposed to be an expert,” he says. “Why is this taken more seriously [than a blogger]?”

For designers, bloggers also represent a useful tool for market research and brand promotion. Shoe designer Manolo Blahnik, who sponsored the Met’s exhibition, says he thinks bloggers have been partly responsible for getting a younger generation of consumers excited about his shoes. One popular blogger who calls himself Manolo the Shoe Blogger has built a community of people who treat footwear criticism as if it were a team sport. “I love it,” Mr. Blahnik says.

Ayyyyyyy!

Did the Maestro Manolo just say that he “loves” the Shoe Blog of the humble shoeblogger?

This is one of the happiest days of the in Manolo the Shoebloggers entire life!! (Although, this is not the first time the Maestro has mentioned the Shoe Blog.)

The fact that Manolo Blahnik, himself, would sponsor the exhibition about the intersection of blogs and fashion says everything we need to know.

Do not despair! There is the other option!

It is the little known fact, outside of the equestrian circles, that the Maestro Manolo Blahnik has designed the very handsome collection of paddock boots, available in both mens and womens sizes, boots which any man would be most proud to wear!

Look, here is the Dory, one of the most attractive paddock boots the Manolo the Shoeblogger has ever seen.

And here is the Lera.

This is what the Manolo the Shoeblogger had hoped for when he first heard that the Maestro was designing the shoes for the men, not what recently appeared.

These boots are sold exclusively through the website Equestrian Chic, and they are not unreasonably priced for what they are, which is beautiful Manolo Blahnik boots for men.

When the Manolo first heard the rumor that the Maestro was making the men’s shoes, he was overjoyed. Finally, the genius cobbler of our age would produce something that the Shoeblogger could wear!

But, as one may guess from the fact that the Shoeblogger has delayed as long as possible speaking to this subject, the realization of the dream has fallen short.

Just look at this…

Ayyyyy! The suede open-toed slingback for men? Noooooo! No! No! No!

Query: Is this the sort of shoe the impeccably tailored Manolo Blahnik would wear himself?

Answer: Clearly not!

Look here are some of the others…

Leopard-print mandals?

No!

The green oxford?

Although the quality is undoubtedly high, this shoe, nonetheless, looks like something from the atelier of Stacy Adams.

Perhaps in the different, more subdued color combination, this could be worth wearing.

To say that the Shoeblogger is disappointed in this collection is the understatement. There is nothing here the he would wear, and he suspects the same is true of the maestro Manolo, himself. Indeed, the collection seems like the elaborate joke.

And now, we shall never speak of this again.