As Manolo Blahnik reveals, ‘his shoes are inspired by everything from films to architecture. Francois Tuffaut, Jean-Luc Goddard, and Pedro Almodovar are all acknowledged. Even the new Frank Gehry building warrants a mention.’ At the Design Museum Exhibition the 60-year-old Blahnik sits among a crowd of eager journalists and amidst the flash of bulbs jokingly exclaims, “This is torture!”
When asked what creations he would most love to concoct, Blahnik readily admits, “I would love to indulge myself with incredibly exaggerated designs, in silk and velvet lined with sable and God knows what.”
Despite his international acclaim, Blahnik still conscientiously crafts each individual shoe himself and every pair must live up to his high standards. Each shoe is designed to a European size 37 (or British size 5) and scaled to sizes 35-40.
Each season 250 prototypes are created in one of four small factories on the outskirts of Milan, but only an exclusive 85 styles are chosen to appear in each finished collection.
Manolo Blahnik has become known- and in a great deal of cases, worshipped- by millions of people. Madonna once called Blahnik’s designs, “as good as sex.” He currently resides in a Georgian home in Bath, England where he lives with a collection of somewhere in the area of 10,000 pairs of shoes. He jokingly refers to them as his “stupid shoes.”
As Alexandra Shulman, editor of Vogue Magazine observed: “If God had wanted us to wear flat shoes, he wouldn’t have invented Manolo Blahnik.”