Roberto Cavalli Wedge, Ugly and Expensive
Manolo says, this is the sort of atrocity that makes the Manolo waver between anger and despair, while the price leaves him gasping.
P.S. Many thanks to the Manolo’s shoe-obsessed friend Wayne.
APR
2008 21
2008 21
Victory?!?
Manolo says, perhaps our long international nightmare is finally over.
Shares of Crocs Inc plummeted over 40 percent on Tuesday, a day after the maker of brightly colored plastic shoes slashed its sales and earnings projections for the first quarter and year, in what one analyst dubbed a “stunning fall.”
[…]
“Current macrotrends in the environment” have led to weaker-than-expected sales, according to Crocs Chief Executive Ron Snyder, speaking to analysts during a conference call on Tuesday. Colder weather and the closure of the company’s Canadian factory were also expected to crimp profit.
Factories producing Satan’s feetwear are closing? Sales of ugly plastic clogs are plummeting? Super Villain CEOs are whining at the press?
Can ticker-tape parades and joyous public pronouncements of thanksgiving be far behind?
MAR
2008 19
2008 19
Crocs, The Worst Company in America
Manolo says, but only if you go now and cast your vote at the Consumerist.
Antonio Bernardi Sans-a-Heel Platforms
Manolo says, the Manolo does not approve.
The 5 1/2in creations by Briton Antonio Berardi can hardly be described as high heels, since they lack the most important part – a heel.
For the bargain price of £1,800, the wearer will get to totter around with all her weight balanced on a thickened platform sole.
Unsurprisingly, fashionistas are jostling to buy a pair.
Stars including Gwyneth Paltrow and Uma Thurman invested in a black patent version costing more than £1,100, shortly after they were unveiled in Berardi’s spring/summer collection in Paris.
And Victoria Beckham apparently has a snakeskin pair.
They are going on sale in Browns stores in London, where they have to be ordered up to five weeks in advance.
Lincolnshire-born Berardi, 39, said he was inspired by Latin American music and 1980s post-modernism, adding: “When you walk, it is almost on tiptoe. You look really dainty.”
Dainty, as if your feet were bound in infancy by Mandarins.
FEB
2008 21
2008 21
Manolo’s Thursday Miscellany
Manolo says, here are the few links which may perhaps amuse…
The Official Beverly Feldman Blog!
Dissent at the Blog of the Manolo
Manolo says, not everyone agrees that the Crocs Mammoths should be abominations unto the Manolo. Such is the case with this comment, left this morning at the blog of the Manolo.
This is SOOO sad. You people are all up in arms over SHOES? That you “wouldn’t be caught dead” in? I don’t know what is sadder, the fact that you absolutely hate something SO much (which, by the way, are JUST shoes!), or the fact that you feel the need to have a website devoted to your hate for said shoes.
My 5 year old son LOVES them, he had a pair this summer and practically wore them everyday (except when he HAD to wear sneakers), and I just ordered him a pair of the mammoths for winter. I actually like them, too. I had some in the summer and just ordered myself some mammoths as well. What I think is so “sad” and should be “the end of the world” as you all refer to THESE shoes, is the fact that you would go out and spend a ridiculous amount (YES, $800 or more on a pair of uncomfortable heels simply because they say “Manolo” is RIDICULOUS). You act as though these shoes are “beneath” you all, but I guaran-damn-tee you all that if they weren’t made by Crocs, but by Manolo, you’d all just HAVE to have them. And you all have to through in the comments about what’s good for the environment and what’s not, but I’d be willing to bet that the environment is not on ANY of your minds when you are out buying your Manolos, huh?
Be damned if I am going to go broke buying heels that will hurt my feet and ruin them in the long run when I can buy something for a tiny fraction of the price and be comfortable. And, in response to a comment that someone left on here, it DOES matter that they are comfortable. Yes, I understand that your flannel boxers are comfortable too and you don’t go out in them, but if you did, I wouldn’t judge you. Unfortunately you cannot say the same because just about every single comment I have read on here shows what kind of materialistic, judgemental, arrogant people you all are. THAT is what is sad…not a Croc shoe.
Consider the Manolo chastened!
The Evolution of Ugly
Manolo says, perhaps not as amusing as the Manolo’s Gallery of the Horrors, but this short article in the New York Magazine is important nonetheless.
Let us devoutly hope that the author is wrong about the next big ugly shoe trend…
Salt-Water Sandals worn proudly by adult persons!
Which is, of the course, yet more evidence of the continuing infantilization of Americans.
Reef Dram, Sandals of Death
Manolo says, the Manolo has been opposed to these ridiculous Reef Sandals with the flask in the sole since he first saw them. But now, he has more substantive reasons to dislike them, they can kill you.
Even as federal authorities issued an alert warning U.S. law enforcement officers that terrorists are continuing to conceal explosive devices in thick soled shoes, a regional law enforcement agency followed up Thursday with a warning that one manufacturer’s beach sandal can hold liquid explosives and a sharp implement in its heel,, according to a bulletin issued originally last spring and reissued yesterday the “Dram Sandal” by Reef, is capable of holding approximately 2-3 ounces of liquid in a hidden compartment, located in the heel of each sandal. The Dram Sandal became available March 1, 2007, and can be purchased online and at most shoe stores, the bulletin stated.
“The Reef Company, which is a designer and distributor of casual apparel and footwear, has developed several sandals with bottle openers concealed in the heel of the sandal” the bulletin reads. “The most recent line of Reef Sandals is the Dram Sandal. The Dram Sandal contains a flask embedded into the sole of the sandal and is marketed as a ‘Polyurethane encapsulated canteen in heel with screw cap.’ In addition to the hidden plastic canteen, the sandal comes complete with a mini funnel, church key/bottle opener and a visual gauge embedded in the sole to show how much liquid is remaining in the hidden compartment. The hidden compartment in the Dram Sandal, which was primarily made for storing beverages, could intentionally or unwittingly be used to store and transport liquid explosives.”
Now if we can only find reasons to keep the Crocs off the airplanes.
P.S. From the Manolo’s internet friends at Hot Air
OCT
2007 18
2007 18
Crocs Get the Boot
Manolo says, sensible peoples in positions of authority are stepping forward to protect the innocent.
Crocs, those ubiquitous, Swiss-cheese-like clogs, are joining their flimsier flip-flop cousins on school “do not wear” lists around the USA.
More public schools are instituting stricter, parochial-style dress codes, and Crocs, along with generic sandals and flip-flops, aren’t fitting the closed-toe, closed-heel criteria. […]
In some elementary schools, Crocs are a safety question. Though most schools are escalator-free — in the past year, the Croc-escalator cocktail has been blamed for injuring the toes of a few children — administrators say monkey bars and Crocs, as well as sandals and flip-flops, don’t mix.
It’s not “totally unreasonable” for schools to be sensitive that some clothing poses safety concerns, says Lisa Soronen, senior staff attorney with the National School Boards Association. “Schools are sued not infrequently for a variety of injuries that happen to students” on school property. “I’ve tried on Crocs. They’re not made for your individual foot. These aren’t custom shoes here.”
Ha! The Manolo laughs at the obvious!
OCT
2007 15
2007 15
Manolo in the Baltimore Sun
Manolo says, the Manolo has been quoted in the very amusing article about the Crocs in the Baltimore Sun.
In a world of fashion that has more than its share of don’ts — what exactly is it about a toy-like little shoe with holes that provokes such vitriol?
Is it the candy colors they come in? The plasticity? The cheapness? Is it the brazenness with which Crocs owners have introduced the former boat shoe into polite society, shuffling and shlumpfing around grocery stores, shopping malls — even offices.
“They repulse me,” says Vincenzo Ravina, who founded Ihatecrocs.com with his friend Kate Lesh, the happy snipper. “They are to your eyes what secondhand smoke is to your lungs.”
[…]
TV personality Bill Maher recently focused a diatribe against them that began, “New rule: Stop wearing plastic shoes.”
[…]
Manolo the ShoeBlogger puts Crocs in his “Gallery of Horrors.”
“The Croc-wearers walk about as if they have discovered something special in the unsightly combination of plastic clogs and foot sweat,” Manolo tells The Sun. He attributes their popularity to “the self-destructive cult of comfort.”
“Like sweatpants and mullets,” he says, “they appeal to that demographic which feels most comfortable only in their La-Z-Boys, buffalo wing in hand, or in the NASCAR aisles of their local Wal-Mart. In other words, the Crocs are 21st century peasant shoes … ugly, roomy, cheap and useful for standing knee-deep in pig manure.”
Maher seemed to agree with Manolo and Rudo of Cross Keys when he summed up the Crocs phenomenon as America’s “latest step in our neverending quest to dress as casually as possible.”
“You know I used to wear flip-flops, but they were a little dressy,” he deadpanned. “I want clothes I can hose down.”
Maybe Maher and Manolo are right, that what’s really upsetting the haters is the sense that Crocs are doing more than their part to chip away at our sense of decorum.
It is true. Crocs are not merely the comfortable shoe, they are also indicative of the general relaxing of traditional standards of decorum and respect. What is most troubling, however, is that so few peoples seem to understand this.
OCT
2007 11
2007 11
Leave Crocs Alone!
Manolo says, the Manolo could not agree more, Crocs = Bad!
P.S. Consider this the mild bad-language content warning for the above video from the increasingly ubiquitous William Sledd.
P.P.S. Many thanks to the Raincoaster for finding this.