First there was Manolo … then along came Christian … or was it Jimmy? Before I knew it, close behind were Sergio and Giuseppe. They have pretty much swept me off my feet and there is really very little I can do about it. They are playful, seductive and simply irresistible; they know how to make a woman feel good and sexy. They have mastered the art of courtship and can make any woman say yes with very little resistance. I melt like ice cream in their presence, one look and one touch and I’m hooked; I just can’t get enough of them. Who do I pick? Which one should I choose? Can I have them all?
These are the other men in my life I share with other women; these men get us, they understand our needs in ways even our better halves don’t. How can we not be tempted? They are dedicated to us and love us unconditionally … well, our feet at least.
Who could walk away from Manolo Blahnik? Who could turn down Christian Louboutin? Who could refuse Jimmy Choo? Who could pass up Sergio Rossi or Giuseppe Zanotti? No woman in her right mind.
These men have taken control of our feet and rightly so. In the fashion triumvirate of clothes, shoes and bags, they are the lords of our soles. Their creations are masterpieces of design and fashion, worthy of praise from the millions upon millions of women whose feet they have adorned. Who are these men? Let me introduce them to you.
Manolo Blahnik: The Spanish Zapatero
Born to a Czech father and Spanish mother in 1942, Manolo Blahnik grew up privileged in a banana plantation on Santa Cruz de la Palma in the Canary Islands. Home-schooled along with his sister, his family often traveled to Paris and Madrid, where his parents bought clothes from tailors and couturiers like Cristobal Balenciaga. His interest in shoes was initially sparked when he watched his mother make improvised espadrilles from ribbons and laces on the island: “I’m sure I acquired my interest in shoes genetically or at least through my fingers when I was allowed to touch them as they were made.”
He enrolled in the University in Geneva at the behest of his parents to study politics and law but after one term, shifted to architecture and literature. In 1965 he left Geneva for Paris to study art and worked at a vintage clothing store on Rue de Bonaparte to make ends meet. After several years, at the prodding of his father, he moved to London but rather than study English, he instead spent most of his time going to the cinemas.
In 1971, with the help of Paloma Picasso, a friend from Paris, he went to New York to meet with Diana Vreeland, the editor of Vogue at that time. Upon seeing his drawings, she exclaimed, “You can do accessories very well. Go make shoes. Your shoes in these drawings are so amusing.” With that in mind, Blahnik went back to London and began designing shoes for men but didn’t find it fulfilling; in 1972, the designer Ossie Clark asked him to design the shoes for his next collection. While the designs were fabulous to look at, they were perilous to wear, so after that incident he poured his energy into learning the craft of shoemaking, an art he eventually mastered.
In 1978, he broke into the American fashion scene by creating a collection of “good, solid looks that will wear forever” for Bloomingdale’s and opening his first US store on Madison Avenue. In the same decade, when clumpy platforms were the rave, he revived the sleek stiletto, believing in the power of heels and the sex appeal they convey; it has since become a classic. Swearing off wedges even today, he also redesigned the rustic Mediterranean mules of his childhood into an elegant fashion staple. Throughout the ’80s he worked with young American designers like Calvin Klein and Isaac Mizrahi, who taught him a great deal about designing for a broader market.
Manolo Blahnik is the only shoe designer who works solo, responsible for the layout of his ads and the designs of every one of the shoes that carry his name, from the first sketch to the beech-wood last and finally to the plastic last from which his shoes are made.
He sealed his success and fame in the 1990s when Carrie Bradshaw, the shoe-obsessed character from Sex and the City, pleads with a mugger in one scene, saying, “Please, sir, you can take my Fendi baguette, you can take my ring and watch but don’t take my Manolo Blahniks.” Today “Manolo” is slang used to describe very expensive, very beautiful shoes.
Blahnik has won many awards and continues to work tirelessly; his latest project is an exclusive, limited-design collection for Liberty of London Department Store, which was launched on the first day of New York Fashion Week’s “Fashion’s Night Out” last Sept. 9. Not a fan of platforms, he was glad to see the design fizzle out this season and collaborated with Zac Posen to create fabulously urbane and elegant spike-heeled stilettos and phenomenal bejeweled, sparkly high heels for fall/winter 2010. Madonna once described his shoes as “better than sex because they last longer.” Clearly Manolo Blahnik will be a fashion force to be reckoned with for many years to come.
Christian Louboutin: ‘Créateur De Chaussures’
Born in Brittany, France, in 1964, Christian Louboutin is the man behind the trademark red-lacquer-soled shoes. This unexpected stroke of
genius came about with appearance of a staff member wearing red nail polish after viewing what he felt was a lackluster collection; he incorporated the red-lacquer soles into all his designs in 1992 to give them a unique identity and to set them apart from the other high-end brands.
His love for shoes came during his teenage years when he would sketch designs conjured in his mind, in and out of school. He had a fascination for showgirls and would often sneak out to watch them perform in Paris. They became his first and most enduring inspiration for his shoe designs, with Louboutin saying, “ It’s all about the legs, how they carry and look at themselves and their legs in silhouette.”
His resolve to become a shoe designer was enforced while watching Sophia Loren on TV speaking of her sister who left school at 12 to start working. He told himself when he decided to quit school that “if I fail, at least I will be like Sophia Loren’s sister.” This, plus a visit to a museum where women were told to remove their high heels for fear that their shoes would damage the floors, provided the pivotal push to pursue this career. He vowed to create something for women that would break rules and make them feel confident and empowered.
In 1991, he turned his passion into a serious business with the successful opening of his first store in Paris. In the mid-’90s he brought stilettos to new heights by introducing the 4.72-inch high heel. The combination of red-lacquered soles and ultra-high heels became a Louboutin signature and his goal to “make women look sexy, beautiful and to make her legs look as long as they can” were achieved. While he designs flats and lower-heeled styles, he is more famous for his dressier eveningwear designs with bejeweled straps, bows, feathers and other decorative touches.
“My idea of progress is not to make shoes higher but even finer,” Louboutin says of his plans for the future. His brand has won many prestigious fashion awards and his shoes are a constant, captivating presence in highly publicized social fetes, on all red-carpet events and even on the streets of fashionable cities across the globe.
Jimmy Choo: The English Cobbler
This 49-year-old Penang-born, Chinese-Malaysian shoe designer based in London was born into a family of shoemakers. Hard-pressed to finish
his college degree in England, he worked part-time at restaurants and as a cleaner at a shoe factory to help fund his tuition. In 1986, after graduating from the London College of Fashion, he scouted around for a workshop to make his dream a reality and found an old hospital building in Hackney, North London, where he began what is now an illustrious career as a shoe designer.
A true artisan of handmade shoes, he got his first break and international exposure in 1998 with an eight-page feature in Vogue magazine; soon after the late Princess Diana became a staunch patron. In 1996, together with British Vogue accessories designer Tamara Mellon, he co-founded Jimmy Choo, Limited. Tamara provided the image, glitz, exposure and eventual cult status of the brand, which was somewhat lacking since Jimmy Choo was a low-profile, very private person.
In 2001, he sold his 50-percent stake in the company for 10 million English pounds and decided to concentrate on working exclusively on the Jimmy Choo Couture line, while Tamara Mellon expanded the RTW line. The brand’s collaboration in November 2009 with fast-fashion brand H&M was a major hit and instant sellout. Their provocative, sexually charged advertisements appeal to women who want to feel sexy, young but powerful and totally in control. Today, the company is valued at around 185 million pounds and encompasses a complete lifestyle accessories brand with women’s shoes, handbags, small leather goods, sunglasses and eyewear.
Sergio rossi & Giuseppe Zanotti: The Italian ‘Calzolai’
Very little personal data is known about both Italian designers but their brands have become synonymous with ultra-modern, cutting-edge and
jaw-dropping designs for the modern woman. While Sergio Rossi can trace his roots back to the 1950s in Romagna, where his father was a shoemaker, then to his personal foray into the business in Bologna in 1966, several collaborations with Gianni Versace in the ’70s and Dolce & Gabbana in the ’90s, it wasn’t until the 20th century that the brand made a resounding comeback. Under the ownership of Gucci Group and the creative direction of its new designer Francesco Russo, the brand has demonstrated a resilience and sensitivity to the demands of the highly sophisticated and demanding female clientele of today.
In 2009, Sergio Rossi launched the Eco Pump, a biodegradable shoe made from liquid wood and tanned with eco-sensitive tanners, which reflects the brand’s awareness and understanding that luxury and fashion can be combined with sustainability. Some of the proceeds from the sale of the Eco Pump go to GoodPlanet.org.
While the brand still does not command the following of Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin and Jimmy Choo, it is catching up, and fast. Russo describes the Sergio Rossi woman as someone who “draws their strength from performance and dynamism.”
Giving Sergio some competition is none other than Giuseppe Zanotti, a boyish-looking married man in his 50s who hails from the shoemaking district of San Mauro Pascali. The newest entrant in the group, Zanotti opened his first boutique in Milan in 1998 and describes his client as a woman aged 18 to 60 “who has a desire for nice things, who wants to look good for herself, a woman who has intelligence.”
He explains his design process as something similar to creating a piece of music, with each part like a note that all together makes something beautiful. In 2009, he was voted Designer of the Year by Women’s Wear Daily’s sister publication Footwear News and if his winning streak continues, he just may wrest some of the laurels from his more established predecessors.
Tender, Loving Care
Admittedly, the price tags on the shoes these men design are steep, making a large dent in your credit card, if not your bank account. But they command such prices because they are of great quality, made from the finest materials and often handcrafted; in short they are long-term investments, not impulse purchases.
My most expensive shoes have lasted me for years and I have earned back every single dollar, yen, euro or peso I have spent on them because of some basic rules I follow. Here are some age-defying tips for your shoes:
• Store your shoes properly, preferably inside their respective boxes with the heels facing outward and each shoe separated by tissue. If you prefer to keep them lined up on a shoe rack, place shoe trees or tissue paper inside them and make sure the front part does not come in contact with any hard surface; these will help keep your shoes in their original shape.
• Clean them right after use and before you pack them away so dirt that may have accumulated during their use won’t settle in.
• Be mindful of the types of cleaners you use for your shoes since certain materials require particular cleaners; if you can, use all-natural products. For example, oil cream cleaners are a definite no-no for suede, so use spray suede cleaner and a soft bristled brush instead.
• Check the weather before you go out. If there is a threat of rain, put away your coveted satin, suede or soft leather shoes because water will definitely damage them. If your shoes do get wet, let them dry completely in an open area but don’t place them near heating devices.
• Be aware of the venue of any event you are attending. If it’s outdoors in a garden, forget about wearing stilettos made of fabric or suede. Not only will you ruin the heel because of constant sinking into soil, there’s a great chance you will scrape the front or the heel of your shoes against rocks and the like.
• If you’re driving, change to flats. Not only will you protect your heel from getting damaged, it is safer to drive in them.
• If an embellishment like a brooch or crystal-covered strap breaks, it is best to bring them back to the brand’s outlet for replacement or repair. If that is not possible, find a reputable shoe repair shop and bring the shoes personally so you know the extent and type of work they will do.
• Best of all, at the store where you bought your shoes, ask personnel from for tips on how to care for them. They will be more than happy to teach you and recommend products that will work best.