Blah, blah, Blahnik

If God had wanted us to wear flat shoes, he wouldn't have invented Manolo Blahnik…

—Alexandra Shulman

His Instagram entry reads thus: "My shoes are not designs, they are gestures." And, as British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman once quipped: "If God had wanted us to wear flat shoes, he wouldn't have invented Manolo Blahnik." This near-idolatrous position occupied by Blahnik in contemporary fashion reached a peak in recent years, when his shoes became the coveted favourites of Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, and his regal collection was created for and popularised by Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette.

In 20 years of temporary exhibitions at the Design Museum in London, the retrospective on Blahnik, staged in 2003, still holds the record for the most-visited exhibition in any week. Now Blahnik has announced he will open his first men's shoe store in London, at Burlington Arcade this July; the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto is also running Manolo Blahnik: The Art of Shoes, a touring exhibition, until January 6, 2019.