Manolo says, the Manolo’s friends at the Collector’s Weekly (which earlier this year published the remarkable interview with the shoe collector John Walford) have returned with the excellent interview with Elizabeth Semmelhack, one of the curators at the magnificent Bata Shoe Museum and author of the book Heights of Fashion: A History of the Elevated Shoe.

There is much in this interview to both ponder and enjoy, but below are two intriguing excerpts.

Collectors Weekly: How did a pair of Manolos or Louboutins become star accessories?

Semmelhack: I don’t think that it was the designers themselves who did it as much as the culture. Clearly their shoes are lovely, but over the course of the 20th century, you have a great loss of accessories in women’s wear. I like to use the hat as an example of that. If you think about watching “I Love Lucy” on TV, so often she’s walking by a hat shop and she stops to purchase a hat. Now she’s got to hide it from Ricky because God forbid he sees it. It’s the hat that she must have, the hat, the hat, the hat. Along the same lines, we had white gloves and we had pearls and we had other similar ways of expressing status.

With the loss of iconic accessories like those, shoes carry a greater burden of meaning. We now require shoes to really, as someone said, punctuate our fashionable outfit or unfashionable outfit, whatever we’re doing. They are increasingly a way of turning a generic outfit around, and I think that’s one of the reasons why shoes have become such a focal point of culture. We can read a lot into them.

But today, where fashion has been so democratized, you can have two women of wildly different socioeconomic standings or wildly different social constructs of themselves going into the same, say, Gap store and buying the exact same pair of jeans. One might wear her jeans with a pair of Manolo Blahniks, making one statement, while the other woman puts on a pair of Keds to go watch her kids play soccer, and she makes a different statement.

The loss of the hat as the fashion accessory elevates the shoes to the place of prominence? The theory is so simple and elegant, it cannot but be true.

Here is the second excerpt, this time on the topic of clothing for the men.
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Manolo says, it is the Earth Day, so you should be celebrating Gaia by wearing beautiful green shoes.

…such as these ecologically correct Vine Ankle Wrap Sandals from our Maestro Manolo Blahnik.

With these on your feets, you would be the very image of beautiful Flora, Roman goddess of nature. And we would sing to you in the honorific words of Ovid: Mater, ades, florum, ludis celebranda iocosis!.. Mother of Flowers, come closer, so that we may honor you with joyful games!

Manolo says, as the gentle reminder, Manolo the Shoeblogger is not the Maestro Manolo Blahnik, and to help you understand the difference, the humble shoeblogger has prepared the Venn diagram.

fig. 1

So, as you may clearly see, Manolo the Shoeblogger is not Manolo Blahnik.

Indeed, Manolo Blahnik agrees that he is not Manolo the Shoeblogger...

Manolo the Shoeblogger? Sorry, not me. But it’s very funny, isn’t it? Hilarious!

Let us hope this ends any confusion.

Manolo says, happily!

Indeed, the humble shoeblogger kneels ecstatically, because once again the Maestro Manolo Blahnik proves that he deserves our devout worship.

Manolo says, normally when one thinks of the cage sandal, one of the shoe trends which has recently swept the field, one thinks of the aggressively urban, Queen Boadicea, lady-warrior-straps-on-her-leather-armor type of shoe, in black or dark brown.

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!

Manolo says, today is the special day of obligation here at the Manolo the Shoeblogger’s humble shoe blog, for today is the birthday of our patron saint, the Maestro Manolo Blahnik, who was born on this day in 1942.

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!

Manolo says, our muse, the Maestro Manolo Blahnik, has given the most provocative interview to Vanessa Friedman of the Financial Times. Here is the brief excerpt.

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.

Manolo says, it is Monday and you are back your desk and the Manolo is finally back at his, and all is right with the world (assuming that you do not read the newspapers, and really, who does anymore?).

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!

Manolo says, our Maestro, the genius shoe maker, Manolo Blahnik has made the appearance in Beverly Hills, and has granted the press the interview. Naturally, he is his typically delightful and gracious self, dispensing provocatively charming advice. (For the example, he does not like the platform shoes, he finds them “ugly”. )

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.

Manolo says, there is the new exhibit that has just opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute entitled Blog.mode Addressing Fashion and sponsored by the Maestro Manolo Blahnik. This morning there was the very good article in the Wall Street Journal about this show.

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.