Manolo's Shoe Blog

JAN
2011 03

Matthäus Schwarz, Renaisance Sartorialist

Manolo says, thanks to the interesting article about the birth of European “fashion” at the History Today, the Manolo has been introduced to the chief accountant to the family Fugger, Matthäus Schwarz, who was apparently the sort of Renaissance Sartorialist. In July 1526 Matthäus Schwarz, a 29-year-old chief accountant for the mighty Fugger family of merchants from Augsburg, commissioned a naked image of himself as fashionably slim and precisely noted his waist measurements. He worried about gaining weight, which to him signalled ageing and diminished attractiveness. Over the course of his life, from his twenties to his old age, Schwarz…

JAN
2011 03

Alan Rickman’s Voice Brings All the Girls to the Yard

Manolo says, firstly, how is it possible that the Manolo has never heard of this movie before? Secondly, this must be counted among the greatest of the Alan-Rickman-based cinematic moments ever. Thirdly, that voice, it is like the melted butter poured into the brandy snifter filled with warm lobster flesh, while Chuck Mangione plays the Mozart softly in the background.

JAN
2011 03

Prada Red Leather Driving Loafers For the Monday

Manolo says, it is Monday and you are back at your desk, and already you have broken the first of your twenty dozen resolutions of the new year’s. Last week, as you were enjoying the mug of brandy egg nog and gobbling the final bit of your Great Aunt Jemminy Cricket’s (née Jeanette Crick) most delicious and rum-intensive fruitcake, when you decided to write out the list of resolutions for the New Year. By the time you were finished, following the third helping of the nog, your list had grown to nearly 200 items, and included such things as “write…

JAN
2011 03

The Gifts of Mr. Henry

Manolo says, they keep on giving…. In this Western ski village where the skies are not cloudy all day (sometimes there is snow, too), Mr. Henry has been having fun teasing his adored consort each time the ski-bum waiter addresses her as “ma’am.” But today the little dude-boy addressed Mr. Henry as “sir” – not once, but three times. Cheek!