Blah, Blah, Blahnik

Shoe designer Manolo Blahnik, about to open his first men's store in London, is the subject of a retrospective in Toronto

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 favorites of Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, and his regal collection was created for and popularized 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 soon; the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto is also running Manolo Blahnik: The Art of Shoes, a touring exhibition, until Jan 6, 2019.