Manolo says, this beautifully wonderful D&G butterfly-encrusted shoe is the marvelous example of how the designer can take the basic suede black pump and move it from the mundane to the super fantastic!

Manolo says, the Manolo’s friend Linda Grant has recently purchased these Dolce & Gabbana shoes (in black patent), which sadly, have not withstood the test of (short) time and London streets.

I mentioned last week that I had bought a pair of Dolce & Gabbana shoes. I wore them for the first time on Thursday. When I got home the leather on the soles was pitted and worn away. I was going to take them back to Harvey Nichols for a refund but first went into my excellent local shoe repairers for an opinion. They told me that the shoes were not designed to be worn before having rubber soles put on them if you were going to wear them in the street, rather than carpet […]

To put the rubber half soles on the designer shoes, or to not put the rubber half soles on the designer shoes, that is the question.

While it is true that many cobblers and manufacturers recommend the professional attachment of the thin rubber half soles to the bottom of the designer shoes which are to be worn in the streets, to do so seems as if a) one is being defrauded by the manufacturer and b) one is destroying the integrity of the beautiful object.

The problem is that the shoes we most prize for their beauty and elegance are most often those which are exceedingly delicate, and are not designed for daily wear on the wet and muddy streets of the big city. Worse, the ultimate impracticality of the beautiful shoe is sometimes part of its charm, even if it does not seem fair that $600 shoes should display signs of wear so quickly.

So, what is the solution? Certainly, premium designers and manufacturers must only use the highest quality leather (something the Dolce and the Gabbana have clearly not done in this case, and more shame to them for it).

But even with the best and most durable leathers, the problem of design intrudes, as we wish our most precious shoes to be exquisite, light as the feather, and possessed of thin soles and delicate features, all things which run counter to our desire for durability, and the laws of nature.

And this is how it shall ever be, sturdiness and delicacy in eternal conflict, for as long as we maintain our justifiable love of natural materials.

Manolo says, surprisingly, the metallics are still in, but this year, it is the silver that is hottest, and you could not do much better than this silverly slingback from the Dolce and the Gabbana.