Every Shoe Tells a Story

Manolo Blahnik was born on November 28th, 1942 in Santa Cruz de la Palma in the Canary Islands, to a Czech father and Spanish mother. He and sister Evan-

gelina grew up on the family’s banana plantation, and were home educated. Besides their grandfather’s house, there were no nearby neighbors. The family frequently traveled to Madrid and Paris, where his mother bought clothes from her favorite designers while his father visited those cities’ tailors. Young Manolo enjoyed looking at the designs in the fashion magazines his mother sub-scribed to, and he received an early education in the art of shoe-making by watching his mother make her own footwear, using ribbon and lace.

“My goal is to always be a challenge to myself ” My shoes have something other shoes don’t - personality.’ Perhaps this ex-plains why Manolo Blahnik’s work has such a seductive power and how, with a career spanning over 25 years, he has become the world’s most famous footwear designer. Born in the Canary Islands in 1943, Blahnik spent his childhood crafting tinfoil shoes for the family’s cats. After studying languages and art in Geneva, he moved to Paris in 1968 with the intention of becoming a set designer. But on a trip to New York in 1970, Paloma Picasso took him to meet Diana Vreeland, then editor-in-chief of American Vogue, who insisted his talent lay in shoe design. Continued on next page

By Suzanne S. Ego Design. CA

Manolo Blahnik Slingbacks, $485.