Tales from the atelier: Manolo Blahnik
Take a look inside the Milan factory where the famous footwear is made
Over the last 53 years, Manolo Blahnik has turned his eponymous footwear brand into one of the most well known in the world. Born in 1942 and raised on the Canary Islands, Blahnik had an interest in shoe design from the time he was a small boy, often crafting miniature boots out of sweet wrappers for the lizards that roamed near his childhood home. Before entering the fashion business, he studied international law, interned at the United Nations and worked in set design — he even had a brief stint as a photographer for The Sunday Times. However, it was a chance encounter with the then director of the Met Costume Institute, Diana Vreeland, in Paris that changed his course. Vreeland was impressed by his sketches and encouraged him to pursue a career in shoe design.
Blahnik developed his first shoe collection for the London designer Ossie Clark by 1971. His designs reimagined women’s shoes at a time when chunky, platform designs reigned supreme. He introduced sleek stiletto shapes, which were a smash with London’s fashion set. Some of Blahnik’s earliest fans included Twiggy, Anjelica Huston and Bianca Jagger (Jagger famously wore the designer’s shoes when entering Studio 54 on a white horse in 1977). This celebrity clientele raised his profile, but Blahnik really became a household name by the mid-1990s when his shoes became the footwear of choice for the characters of Absolutely Fabulous and Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. Soon, Manolos were pop culture symbols.
Today, his shoes are worn by everyone from Michelle Obama to Rihanna, and the designer splits time between his office in Marylebone, his home in Bath and his factory in Italy, where the shoes are still manufactured, largely by hand. A single pair of shoes can take up to one week to make, with up to 21 components used in the construction of each one, including everything from the heel, to the reinforcement, lining and buckles. The brand works from a collection of 13 different styles, including slingback stilettos, loafers and ballerina slippers, which are then embellished with different patterns and colours each season. These patterns are deeply rooted in history and include belting influenced by the Western buckles of American cowboys, knotting based on the bows depicted in 18th and 19th-century portraiture, and embroidery inspired by techniques used in 5th-century China.
In a 2014 interview with Vogue, Blahnik said: “I am by birth a man, but in the last 40 years I became a shoemaker, which is what I am now, and I think what I will be till I drop.”
Take a look inside the brand’s Milan factory, and learn how a Manolo is made.
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Director: Mona Tehrani
Director of photography: Edoardo Delille
Additional words: Chiara Brown
