Manolo says, our muse, the Maestro Manolo Blahnik, has given the most provocative interview to Vanessa Friedman of the Financial Times. Here is the brief excerpt.

The problem is that the conversation keeps floating away. “Are shoes so important?” he asks. “Really? If I was a woman, I would be dressed in the same thing for a month and just change my hat and gloves. Maybe my shoes too; yes, I see what you mean but, really, it’s jewels that change an outfit. And I do love gloves. And I adddore hats. There are toooo many shoes now. I always tell the children,” – Blahnik is an honorary professor at the Royal College of Art and the “children” are his students – “‘Don’t do shoes! Do hats!’ And the shoes are so strange, so vulgar. I hate these platforms that are all over the place today; they are all about grabbing attention. They are suburban! I never do a platform. Well, I did, in the 1970s, but that was a bad experience.”

[…]

“I detest this period of fantasy we were in where you had something for three seconds and then you threw it away,” he says, opening his eyes wide in horror. “The last few years have been a nightmare! It’s one thing to have a dream, but this was overkill! I was in Los Angeles last year, because they were giving me that award where they can spit on you and stomp on you. What’s it called? A star on the Walk of Style?” He means the Rodeo Drive Walk of Style, a series of plaques awarded to fashion and style legends that are embedded into a Beverly Hills pavement. “Yes, the Walk of Style. They asked me who I wanted to give me the award: Chloë Sevigny? I said, ‘No, I don’t get her.’ Lucy Liu? Oh, she was divine, I looooove oriental girls. Do you love oriental girls? And she was wearing something by [Givenchy designer] Riccardo Tisci, who is my favourite boy – what were we talking about?”

In the humble opinion of the Shoeblogger, this is one of the best articles ever written about the Maestro Manolo Blahnik. You must go read the whole thing.