Manolo’s Shoe Blog

Manolo says, the Manolo’s good friend Linda Grant has pointed us to the article about the surrealist Prada shoes in the Telegraph, which contains the wonderfully brilliant observation, one which accords perfectly with the beliefs of the Manolo.

What, exactly, is the point, you might well ask? You probably won’t be able to walk very far in these shoes, and you certainly can’t run in them; so what is one meant to do with them? Put them on a mantelpiece, like a quirky sculpture? This is always an option - a perverse one, I grant you - but I have a theory, borne out by years of personal practice, that if you love a pair of beautiful shoes, however fantastical, you are miraculously able to dance in them. Thus the right heels - and you know them when you find them - will lift the spirits as well as the feet.

Finally, the statement which sums up the totality of the Manolo’s existence: Beautiful shoes make you happy!

Manolo says, here it is the first Monday in March and Old Man Winter is still battering away at your resolve and sanity.

“Any day, now,” you keep saying to yourself, “the sun will break through, the snow will melt, and Spring will be here.”

But then you get up in the morning, and leave the house, only to be assaulted by freezing rain, or hail, or snow, or some deadly combination of freakish weather that leaves you cursing the weatherman and his ignorant ilk.

Oh for the simpler days, when all that was necessary to make the sun shine was to throw the few sacrificial captives into the gaping maw of the bottomless limestone hole that led to the subterranean realm of Gaa’agkai, the God of Inclement Weather.

“First to the edge of the sacrifical hole,” you shout at the heavens, the stinging rain whipping across your face, “Al Roker!”

Oh well, at least when you get to the office you can look at the beautiful vernal shoes, like these Camoscio Deco Suede Platform Sandal from Prada. It even has the spring flower on the insole!

Manolo says, winter still has its icy fingers around our collective throats, but that is not reason to dream of the day when you will be free of this pestilential weather. And when that blessed day arrives, you will walk out onto the warm sand, in shoes that make you feel like the Greek Goddess, shoes such as these beautiful Corallo Oro sandals from Prada.

Manolo says, yes it is only January, and the spring is still decades away. How you long for the coming of the summer, when you can wear beautiful, strappy sandals from clever designers without feeling conspicuously out of place.

Look! it is the new Summer 2008 sandals from Prada! Is that the ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds?

Manolo says, it is odd, but when the Manolo looks at this beautiful Prada Linea Rossa t-strap sandal the first word that leaps into his mind is “honesty”.

Yes, this shoe is beautiful, but it is not frivolous. It does not try to beguile you with false charm and needless frippery. It simply stands there before you, unadorned, possessed only of the natural beauty of its clean lines.

It is like the handsome woman in the full-bloom of middle age, demanding that you judge her not by the shallow and popular standards of our day, but by that which is eternal and unchanging. That there are many who will not recognize her beauty does nothing to diminish it.

Manolo says, remember these beautiful and unusual Prada Ombre shoes from last season, with the sfumato gradient effect?

It seems that Stuart Weitzman does…

In the coming months you will undoubtedly see more modestly priced shoes with this same look.

Manolo says, speaking of the Miuccia and her ways, the Manolo could not help but notice that the latest Prada show in Milan presented shoes that swerved wildly away from the previous look. Remember those beautiful, restrained, and unusual Prada sfumato shoes which we were all so recently praising?

These are emphatically different…

Organic and whimsical, these shoes are not unpleasing, although they have perhaps too much of the Magical Shoe Fairy Cottage about them for the taste of the Manolo.

However, he appreciates the effort.

More to his taste are these colorful shoes below…

(more…)

Manolo asked, whose shoes?

Manolo answers, it is our muse, Miuccia!

Congratulations to the Manolo’s internet friend Miranda, who was the first to guess whose shoes.

She is adorable, and those calves are so muscular!

Manolo asks, how are these beautiful Prada ballet flats produced?

This little movie is like the Holy Relic for the Manolo.

P.S. Many thanks to the Manolo’s friends at the Shoeflyer for this.