Manolo’s Shoe Blog

Manolo says, it is Monday and if you are American you are probably not back at your desk, in the stead you are still at home in your jammies, because that is the way you roll, baby.

And now, because it is the holiday and the day after the Dia de San Valentin, and because you Holiday of Love did not perhaps live up to your expectations (as it did not involve the appearance of Fabio bearing the bucket of fried chicken) the Manolo will show you some fantasy shoes from Christian Louboutin.

Beautiful! Unusual! Fun!! Wicked Expensive!

Manolo says, it is final Monday before Christmas, four short days, the mere blink of the eye…in the other words, it is time to get shopping!

But, before you rush out the door to the mall, here are interesting shoes for you to contemplate while you engage in spirited holiday fisticuffs with your fellow last-minute shoppers.

The Christian Louboutin Bobo Leather Ankle Booties.

This is the shoe that asserts itself.

Would you wear it?

Manolo says, it is Tuesday and you are back at your desk doing whatever it is you normally do, but very badly, as you are completely distracted by Thanksgiving, which is now barreling down upon you like the runaway freight train full of free-range turkeys.

Thanksgiving was not supposed to be crazy this year. It was going to be just you and Gary and the kids and your mother. But then your mother called two weeks ago, and said she’d invited your Uncle Bill to fly out from Buffalo for Thanksgiving.

“Okay,” you thought, “one more won’t hurt. Uncle Bill is an old school nut who will probably goad Gary into an argument about professional football. But one more won’t hurt.”

And then your mother informed you that Uncle Bill insisted on inviting his son, your layabout cousin Billy, to fly in from Hollywood to join you. Billy calls himself the “writer-director-actor-producer,” although what he really is is the 43-year-old, cut-rate playboy who subsists on the variety of menial jobs and handouts from your uncle. Although, to his credit, he did once appear as the non-speaking extra on Will and Grace, in the distant background, as the coffee shop patron.

Speaking of people subsisting on handouts, two days after your mother’s call, your daughter Jeannie, who is away at the college, called to say that she has invited some dorm friends home for Thanksgiving — three foreign girls and one Latvian boy — who have nowhere to go for the holiday.

“The more the merrier,” you think. And then the conversation takes the surreal turn.

“Mom,” says Jeannie, “one of the girls is from Africa, and in her culture the turkey is considered sacred.”

“What?”

“We can’t have turkey, because Ki’x'il’ko,” the name included three clicks and the pop, “says her people consider the turkey to be a type of sacred spirit.”

Later, when you tell Gary that you’re going to have to order goose for Thanksgiving, his reply is succinct.

“Bull-crap. The turkey is sacred to my people, too, especially when served with sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce.”

“But we can’t be offending this girl.”

“Tell her it’s a really big chicken. Nobody thinks chickens are holy.”

And then five minutes after you get off the phone with the butcher, who informs you that you cannot order the 23-pound goose, so you’ll need three smaller birds, Jeannie calls back.

“Mom,” she says, “Ki’x'il’ko says it’s okay to have a turkey. She looked up the word. It’s ostrich that’s supposed to be sacred to her people.”

Luckily, you were able to call the butcher back and cancel the flock of geese.

And now, on Tuesday, with two days to go, you are frazzled and distracted from your work. And yet you are also filled with pride that everyone would consider your home and your family as being the good place to celebrate this important holiday.

Look, here is the Christian Louboutin Feticha Botta Platform Boots, simple, beautiful, dead sexy.

Manolo says, it is Monday and you are back at your desk, somewhat rueful that your breakfast consisted of two cups of coffee, three bite-sized Snickers, two Starbursts, and the small box of Runts (you love the banana-shaped ones).

But what could you do? When you came down the stairs this morning, there was the giant tub of candy sitting on the counter, where you had left it yesterday afternoon when you fled the house for the lengthy bicycle ride, taken to assuage the guilt of your out-of-control candy-binging.

You know you should be more temperate, but Halloween is the worst. You love it so much, and always have, but it is the worst.

The instant it arrives, you flash back to the greedy little girl who on Halloween night would rush to her room with the plastic pumpkin full of candy treats, slamming the door on her little brother’s fingers, and frantically gobbling as much as possible before her mother intervened.

“Honey,” your Mom would call through the door, “why don’t you come out here with the rest of us and show us what you got tonight?”

“Mmphugh, mmphugh NO!!!!” You would shout back, bits of half-chewed Butterfingers spraying across the room.

Threats and counter-threats would be made, and then the tears would flow, as the holy blessed pumpkin was placed on top of the refrigerator, so as to put the parental governor on your consumption. (Like your little brother, who always ate his candy more slowly, that pumpkin would taunt you for days to come with his candy-filled, gap-toothed grin.)

Naturally, when you had children of your own, you understood why the pumpkin had to be placed on top of the refrigerator, although you also understood why the best candies would seem to disappear when the pumpkin was on the refrigerator; because your parents frequently dipped into it, the family tradition you have maintained.

Now, that your youngest is fifteen, your biggest Halloween problem is preventing her from going out the front door dressed like the Hoochie-Mama Witch, or the Slutty Hermoine Granger. (Oy, what has happened to society?)

Although, you are also responsible for buying the candy, which is how the ridiculous abundance of Skittles, and Milky Ways, and Snickers, and Starbursts, and Runts came to be sitting in the giant bowl on your counter.

Sigh.

Speaking of candy…Look! Here is the Kandy-Kolored, Tangerine-Flaked, Streamline baby from Christian Louboutin.

Manolo says, it is Monday and you are back at your desk after the very tiring weekend of nostalgia and regret, the weekend of your 25th college reunion.

It was wonderful to see all of your old friends and acquaintances, and to note, with both satisfaction and alarm, how they have have become middle aged peoples, with gray hairs, spreading bellies, and enough wrinkly crows feets to constitute the murder.

Although your college boyfriend, the aspiring film director who had majored in pot smoking and ultimate frisbee, looked better than ever, like the bronzed Greek god — tall, lean, and tanned, with the full head of beautiful, naturally highlighted, wavy hair — the consequence of spending most of his days in the water off of Point Dume (and his evenings parking cars at the fancy Italian restaurant off of Wilshire Boulevard).

“I’d describe myself as an independent filmmaker and producer,” he said, while Gary, your husband, flirted with the young, porn-starish blond who accompanied your ex. “I’ve got a couple things in development, and my latest short is up is up to 7,100 hits on YouTube.”

Of course, much more disturbing was the appearance of the skinny Pakistani boy, Nayyar, who had latched onto you during your senior year, utterly besotted.

He was sweet in that unworldly, innocent, geeky way–tall and skinny with the prominent nose and wild hair. But, because he was harmless, you never had the heart to tell him to get lost, even as he shadowed you from class to lunch to class, never taking the not so subtle hints that he should go away for the few minutes. (At graduation, when you met his parents, you realized that he had been describing you to them as his “special friend” and that they had expected, with some alarm, that the proposal would follow. )

But there he was at the reunion, in his bespoke Saville Row suit, looking like 743 million dollars (according to Forbes), with homes in London, Singapore, New York, and Gastaad, and his own very successful international equities hedge fund. He had filled out marvelously, become more refined and better looking, and was now objectively hunky, a testament to the powers of expensive tailors, barbers, and personal trainers. And look at his wife! She could be Padma Lakhsmi’s younger, better-looking, more cultured sister.

Naturally, Nayyar and his wife were seated at the same table with you and Gary during the gala dinner, which, oddly turned out to be great fun. The wife was charmingly funny and smart, and Gary, the hale-fellow everyman, bonded with Nayyar over the lengthy discussion of riding mowers.

“Was Nayyar the fellow you and your sister call the ‘Wacky Pak’?” Gary asked, later that night in the hotel, “He doesn’t seem very wacky.”

And now this morning, back at desk, all you can think about were the shoes on Nayyar’s wife’s beautifully elegant feet.. Moira Cutout Patent Pumps from Christian Louboutin!

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

To kill time before I needed to drop my visiting mother off at LaGuardia, we wandered into one of those many nameless discount shoe stores in NYC and I came upon these $15 shoes:

“I’ve always preferred the creative process of designing and selling clothes to the idea of putting on a poncey fashion show [....] It would be wonderful if fashion shows died out completely. They’re so time-consuming and costly.”

The Brogue for Butter

While most believe the ritual to have begun in 1880’s France, the first mention of a man imbibing from the shoe of a beautiful woman actually takes place in Chicago:

Manolo says, it is Monday, and perhaps you are at your desk, or perhaps you are not (seeing as it is either the Day of Columbus or, for some, the Día de la Raza). Either way, whether you are at the work or enjoying the day off, today is the day to celebrate discovery.

And what better way to celebrate this discovery than by remembering the woman who made it all possible, Isabel la Catolica, the Spanish Queen who provided the approval and funding for the Columbian scheme?

Of the course, we do not know exactly what shoes Isabel actually wore on the fateful day when Cristobal Colon was finally given the approval.

Happily, however, the Manolo is the amateur student of history, one who is qualified to make the educated guess, and thus he imagines it was something like this…

The Christian Louboutin Glitter Peep-toe Slingback.

Although, the Manolo is also willing to accept that it was the glittery sandal, such as this.

The Christian Louboutin Straratata Glitter Platform Sandals

“But, Manolo,” you are perhaps saying to yourself, “late 15th Century lady monarchs would have worn sensible brocade flats, not glittery-sexy pumps or sandals.”

To which the Manolo replies, O RLY?

The application of the well-known reasoning principal entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, yields the following locgical question: “What sort of fabulous shoes would you wear, if you were a) the most powerful queen in the world and b) able to be carried anywhere you wished in the opulent sedan chair?”

To which the most reasonable answer is Glittery Louboutin Platforms!*

Thus…Q to E to the D.

*The answer “Bejeweled Louboutin Platforms”, is also acceptable.

Manolo says, it is Tuesday and you are back at your desk doing whatever it is you do with the computer and those endless stacks of paper for the eight hours each workday you are not engaged in pointless meetings or bureaucratic wrangling, or avoiding your backbiting co-workers.

Did that sound bitter?

Sorry. You are not bitter, not exactly. You are perhaps disgruntled, and certainly anxious, maybe even slightly angry.

Ever since your company was taken over late last year by MegaMongoManic Corp, your formerly decent job has morphed into the Mr. Toad’s Wild Day Job, with rumors of impending layoffs and financial collapse–each more dire than the last–clambering up and down the office grapevine.

But, you have grown used to that, so perhaps that is not the cause of your aggressive case of the blahs. Perhaps it is the fact that summer has well and truly ended, marking yet another season down the old tubes.

Sigh.

Well, there is nothing for it but shoes, your oldest and bestest friend, always ready to make you feel better when the world has you at its mercy.

Look! Here is the Dillian Flower Pumps fron Christian Louboutin.

If looking at this shoe (one of the most wonderful and stylish of this season) does not send the blahs packing, nothing will.

Manolo says, the Manolo has long and loudly campaigned against the phoney-baloney fake shoes (even those produced by supposedly reputable companies), but recently the brazenness of the counterfeit shoe crooks has been too much.

Thankfully, the word is getting around, and today there is the article in the New York Daily News about this very topic.

Killer Louboutin heels with that signature red sole for just $177, delivered to your door at 80% less than the $860 retail price.

Strappy Jimmy Choo sandals at $143.99, 64% less than the $395.99 value at the label’s Fifth Ave. store.

Such are the boasts of flashy Web sites featuring red-carpet shots of J.Lo, Sarah Jessica Parker and Cameron Diaz in the wildly glamorous shoes. [...]

It seems too good to be true – and it is.

Tens of thousands of online shoppers are falling for the latest variety of fakes flooding the Internet.

Despite ultra-convincing pictures and claims that the Web sites are run directly by the designers and the footwear is individually crafted in Europe, it’s a scam.

The goods are neither handmade nor exclusive. They are mass-produced in China.

The “leather” often smells of toxic chemicals, the “hand-stitching” is replicated by sewing machine, and the sizing is inaccurate.

Return the purchase and, on top of the cost of shipping, customers are subject to a “restocking” fee of up to 20%. Little wonder most swallow the disappointment and don’t bother to send them back.

If disappointment were the only result of the fraud, it wouldn’t make headlines. Who really cares about image-obsessed fashionistas being ripped off?

On closer examination, however, this international con has a devastating and far-reaching effect.

Child labor, money laundering, prostitution and terrorist activity go hand in hand with the counterfeit trade managed by criminal gangs.

For several months now, the Manolo has been waging the war against these evil people both in his comment section (where they spam the comments with their links) and in his banner ads (where their ads are delivered to his websites by Google Adsense). With effort, he has been able to keep them at bay.

Remember, when buying the luxury good, only do business with the reputable companies, either those with whom you are already familiar, or those who have been recommended to you by people you trust.

P.S. Thanks to the Manolo’s internet friend the Susan at the always informative Counterfeit Chic.