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JUL
2009 03
Sneakers

The World’s Oldest Basketball Shoes!

Worlds Oldest Sneakers! The Manolo would totally wear them!

Manolo says, from the Manolo’s friends at Boing Boing come news of the discovery of the world’s oldest kicks!

Gary Pifer a vintage clothing dealer found the 116 year old sneakers while combing through picked over items, that were contained within a victorian era trunk. “As I arrived late, I was told that all the good stuff was gone”, said Mr. Pifer.

He paid 50 cents for the brown high top canvas sneakers made by the Colchester Rubber Company. Later that night, Mr. Pifer was shocked to discover, during an internet search, that the brand went out of business in 1893.

“In a instant, I knew this discovery would be re-writing basketball and sneaker history, as these sneakers are 25 years older than the 1917 Converse All-Stars”, added Pifer. The Colchester Rubber Co. was located in Colchester, Connecticut and was in business from 1888 to 1893.

Naturally, this being the Age of Commerce, Mr. Pifer, who discovered the shoes in 2004, has already set up the company to market reproductions of these marvelous shoes.

And, the Manolo has to say, he would happily wear these shoes.

JUL
2009 03
Kenneth Cole

Manolo the Columnist

Manolo says, here is the Manolo’s latest column for the Express of the Washington Post.

Dear Manolo

I recently graduated and started a new job as a research chemist. This means long hours on my feet in the lab, and close-toed shoes in the summertime!. Can you recommend any close-toed shoes that are comfortable, fashionable, *and* affordable? It seems an impossible combination.

Genna

Manolo says, since the time of the famously maladapted and nerdy Isaac Newton, scientists have been the modern priestly class, intermediaries between our superstitious world of ignorance and their logical world of higher knowledge, engaged in arcane rites that are as incomprehensible to us lay people as the differences between homoousios and homoiousios were to the medieval serfs.

And as members of this modern priesthood–as guileless and unworldly in its way as the Benedictine order–scientists are not expected to be overly concerned about the matters of this world. They have bigger fish to dissect.

Unfortunately, unlike the medieval monks, the modern scientists must pick out their own clothing, the practice that has resulted, more or less, in disaster. And thus one cannot help but notice that most scientists fall somewhere between the Nutty Professor and Steve Urkel on the continuum of fashion.

Thank heavens for the lab coat!

Look, here is the Make the Braid from Kenneth Cole New York. The cute loaferish shoe that will look good as you unlock the secrets of the universe. And it is on the sale!

Make the Braid from Kenneth Cole New York Manolo Likes! Click!