Manolo’s Shoe Blog

Manolo says, yes, it is again Monday and you are back again at your desk. But happily, it is the the short week, only three days until Thanksgiving, the majority of which you will spend working out the complex seating arrangements needed to maintain harmony during the big feast. (As always, your father must be placed far away from your Cousin Andy the aggressive atheist, who makes little snorting noises when you say grace, which irritates your Uncle Bob, who made little Jenny cry last year with his “witticisms” about fat girls, and who also likes to mock your cousin Joe, the Ron Paul supporter, who last year got into the giant argument about “fiat money” with Jack’s wife, Lynn, the high school English teacher, whose lax notions about home cleaning and the desirability of take-out fast food make your mother angry.)

Better you should actually work on bringing peace to the Middle East, no?

Still, there is always time to look at the beautiful shoes, and there are few shoes more beautiful than these wonderful silvery peep-toe sandals from the Rupert Sanderson.

Ahhhh, the soothing power of beautiful shoes. Now you are refreshed! Back to the annotated seating charts, you’ve almost got it!

Manolo says, the Manolo’s internet friend the Kate Finnigan has written the wonderful article about the hot shoe designer, the Rupert Sanderson. You must immediately go read the whole article, but for the Manolo the Shoeblogger, this is the best part of it.

Instead his energy has been devoted to refining his shoes. From the display shelf in the shop he grabs another Odette (all the shoes are named after varieties of daffodils from an ancient copy of the RHS Classified List of Daffodil Names bought at a car-boot sale and now lying on the table). ‘Four years ago I wouldn’t have been able to do this,’ he says, unable to hide his admiration for the craftsmanship of the simple, contemporary court shoe in his hand.

‘I’d have thought, “Where’s the money in that? Who’s gonna want to buy a pair of shoes that don’t have something tricksy about them?” In fact, the whole thing is to pare it down and work on the fit, the length and shape of the last. Rather than thinking you have to put something on it, you have to take something away. You use the foot as decoration. To my mind, sticking something on isn’t great shoe-making.’

Yes, shouts the Manolo!

Finally, the shoe designer who has come to understand that less can indeed be more.

This is what makes the Maestro Manolo Blahnik the genius that he is. He knows that what is most important is the line of the shoe, the shape and the ratios of the proportions, not the fancy-tacky geegaws which many designers pile onto their shoes.

Now we see that another designer has learned this eternal truth, that one should seek the idealized Platonic form, and eschew the gimcrackery of the tasteless ornamentation.

And what is the result of this desire? Beauty, truth. Truth, beauty.

Elegant in their simplicity, beautiful in their elegance. This is what the humble shoeblogger seeks in the shoes.