"My button period"

For the FT, Vanessa Friedman lunches with Manolo Blahnik (site registration required):

His favourites have been a pair that he made in 1973 for Ossie Clark, which featured cherry blossoms and green suede leaves that twined up the leg; ones with gigantic buttons (“from my button period in the 1980s”); shoes made from coral and pony skin that appeared in an exhibit at the Design Museum in London in 2003; and shoes from this season’s collection called “Toubid”, high-heeled ankle-strap sandals featuring tiers of cut work around the arch of the foot. The ones his customers like best tend to be the court shoes, which he thinks are “very conventional”, especially when they come in “stupid colours like dusty pink. It’s the safe shoe!”

He makes all sorts of heels but says that his favourite height is 3cm, which is a mid-height. (He also does 5cm.) He is currently also very interested in flats because “they are the most difficult shoes to walk in and be divine and gracious – they make you walk like a reindeer. The last time women really knew how to walk well in flats was the 1950s. You can see it in the movies.