The Compare and the Contrast

The Lips of Doom!

Manolo says, here is the tragic picture of the Donatella Versace.

The Donatella, she has everything. She designs the beautiful clothes, she is wealthy, she has maintained her figure in the excellent condition, and the dress she is wearing it is stunning, but the mania for the plastic surgery it has begun to turn her face into the grotesquerie.

Manolo says, yes, sometimes the plastic surgery it perhaps necessary, but the results to be strived for should be subtle and natural, a tiny nip here, a little tuck there.

For the comparison, look at our muse, the Miuccia.

Adorable!Adorable!

Yes, the Miuccia, her face it is not traditionally beautiful, and undoubtedly she has had the tiny nip and the little tuck, but because she has not meddled with the basic structure of her very Italian, very handsome face, she is more compelling than the Donatella, who is fighting the process of the aging with the tooth and the nail and the collagen.

Manolo says, because the beauty it is found in the state of naturalness, the trick to aging with the grace is to work with the nature, not to try to overthrow it. Nothing it is more ridiculous and tragic than the woman of the advanced years who is attempting to look like the teenager. (viz. Cher, Cher, and Cher)

JAN
2005
07

News Flash! The Stilettos Are “Hot”!

Manolo says, here is the very obvious news from the newspapers: Stilettos are Soaring in Popularity.

Stiletto heels force a woman’s back to arch, pushing her bosom out in the front and her rear in the back, further accentuating the feminine silhouette. Men like it, and so do women, says fashion historian Caroline Cox.

“Men like an exaggerated female figure. Stilettos also make a woman seem quite delicate because you have to balance (in the shoes). She might need a man’s hand,” Cox says.

“Women like them because they have a reputation of being glamorous and sexy. Women also get height, which makes them feel powerful.”

Cox wrote Stiletto (HarperDesignInternational), which traces the modern history of the ultra-high heel. She credits 1950s’ shoemakers Roger Vivier, Andrew Perugia, Salvatore Ferragamo and Charles Jourdan for rescuing women from the utilitarian wartime footwear of the previous decade.

Since then, stilettos have remained a fixture on the fashion scene, hitting heights in the ’50s and ’80s, and they’re soaring now. Cox notes, though, that the look of the modern stiletto is evolving from a witchlike pointy toe to a rounder toe, and Prada, a favorite among the stylish set, is returning to a thicker cone-shape heel that was popular 20 years ago instead of the narrower slope familiar to fans of Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik.

In the 1960s, the heel was square, while in the late ’70s – as a backlash against the wedge and the clog – stilettos either had a punk-rock edge or they were disco sandals, Cox explains.

Manolo says, it is obvious, nothing can make the legs of the woman look better than the stiletto heels.

Also, the books by the Caroline Cox they are always worth the reading if you are interested in the history and the meaning of the fashion, and who is not intested in that?

The Miuccis Is Our Muse

Miuccia T-Shirt

Manolo says, to celebrate both the genius of the Miuccia and the successful first week of the Manolo’s Prada Blog, the Manolo he has comissioned the commemorative t-shirt, (and the mug, and the other style of the t-shirt, and so forth).