Manolo Blahnik Quotes

I don't consider myself a fashion designer.

It was a different social structure. I'd go to [David] Bailey's for dinner at 10:30. There were always girls there and a house full of ... I don't know, anybody. Cecil Beaton, Diana Cooper ... And there I am sitting down with these creatures of the 20th century, and it was normal to us.

] I'm loyal to my thoughts, to my friends. This is what I really like the best. Loyalty. Sounds goody-goody. Maybe that's not the one you wanted.

There is nothing charming about a woman who cannot walk in her shoes.

I was a young man, and this is the kind of London it was, but so many people are just not here anymore. Not even Tina [Chow], who was to me absolutely the most important girl of the time. Tina was absolutely the chicest thing, the way she kept herself, the way she moved. You're born like that - you cannot acquire it. All those upper-class girls, people like Catherine Tennant, they used to be there in Chelsea, sitting on the couch. Now Chelsea is full of Russians.

I think of each new season as an evolution, not a change in style.

I think Lucy Ferry, now Birley, is absolutely beautiful. She's a modern girl, but she moves beautifully. Amanda [Harlech] moves beautifully when she's not working. All those English leftover society girls.

I watched L'eclisse [1962] with Alain Delon and Monica Vitti. Changed my world. What a glamorous and modern film. This is what a genius is - the thing of a genius. The dresses, the tiny heels, the Cardin look, the boys dressed up as Italian gigolos - it was divine, very modern. [ Michelangelo] Antonioni, I loved and I realized: how modern.

I don't like very young women very much. Never did.

I'm always kind of contradictory to what people want and what's selling. But maybe I should care now because I have two or three more outlets. I have to be more adaptable color-wise to what people want. It's usually just black and pink, and that's it.

I just don't get death at all. Yes, it's there. But I don't get it.

I thought Victoria Beckham was going to be one of those pop girls, but she's absolutely the complete opposite. She's a working girl. She knows what she wants. And when she doesn't know, she really prepares herself. I love this working type of women. And she's a girl from - I don't even know where she's from.

I like the new shoe designers. Not all of them - there are really bad ones too. But I go to the colleges with these kids for lectures, as an honorary professor or whatever, and this Chinese girl I like very much who I give the award to says to me, "You don't know how much you inspired me to do shoes." And I'm glad that I convey that kind of desire to people when they see my bloody shoes.

The only way I can cope with me and my environment is to have this kind of wall around me. I'm exhausting myself.

Remain dignified, dress well, be good to other people and you'll be fine.

I saw these girls like Sherilyn Fenn and Lara Flynn Boyle that should be working now instead of these anonymous girls. They're all the same.

I'm an old bag - I like old thing.

Everything is global now. It's not London, it's not Spain, it's not Italy - everything is everywhere. So you have to be everywhere, I guess.

I saw this vision with a beautiful plastic bag in Kensington High Street, ... and then you didn't see the face because he had this blond thing [indicating a sweeping fringe across his face] that was, you know, too much!

I don't even know Amanda Seyfried or whatever - they're all the same!

I'm not very nostalgic, you see. I just don't think anybody has that kind of thing anymore. By culture, by breeding, by whatever, it's not there. The kids today-what the hell are they going to be? I like young people - yes, I do. But when I talk to people at the schools, and they say, "I saw you on the Twit," I don't even know what they are talking about.

These are very dainty and superrefined, but really vile.

That kind of woman who used to be there at the time is not here any longer. In 10 years, people disappear. But I fantasize still about those kinds of women, and that kind of life that doesn't really exist any longer.

Women are wearing tight and sexy clothes again. It is the body-conscious mentality, and women are revealing every bulge.

I'm very self-critical.

When I was out of favor and people didn't want that type of boot, flats, or high heels with the elegant, dainty things, it gave me much more energy.

I do and re-do things that I used to do in a flash, because I want to be more perfectionist about these things. Maybe it sounds pompous and pretentious, but that's the way I feel.

Some people just use beautiful things to just shop or to have a tribal feeling - 'Oh, blah, blah, blah, I'm wearing Hermes; blah, blah, blah, I'm wearing Saint Laurent; blah-blah blah' - because it's like a need, a tribe, recognition: 'Ahh, my Rolex.' But I run away from anything which is too recognizable - it's my nature.

I'm totally twisted. Instead of, "Oh god, I don't have platforms - they won't like me," I was much more, "I'm doing what I'm doing, and if you don't want to buy it, then don't buy, but that's just what I'm gonna do." It gave me strength. It worked for me.

Paris is paramount for fashion, always was - always will be.

I get more tired by travelling than anything.

I didn't need it [formal training], because I've got the best taste in the world.

I hate celebrities.

My mother has an incredible rigidity, which is very Catholic.

I don't even think about the word. But I do have certain things where I just go, "Aaaaahhh," irritatingly boring and insistent because I want it to look that way and I can do it - I don't even know if you'd call it passion or obsession. Obsession, possibly, but I really love what I do.

A lot of things trigger my inspiration. It can be the most banal things.

I never watched those Spice Girls. I didn't enjoy that at all. So I didn't know Victoria Beckham well. But she came out with this pretty boy, got married, and the boy got more tattoos and more tattoos. And then I met her a few times, and we started work, and something happened. You know, she wanted it. She loves what she's doing.

If I look back I feel frightened, not happy, because my life is a bit of a mystery to me.

I'm OK: I don't need money.

I hate these platforms that are all over the place today; they are all about grabbing attention. They are suburban! I never do a platform. Well, I did, in the 1970s, but that was a bad experience.

I hate to travel with stuff.

I'm a great observer of delicate situations and women. I really like that bygone type of movement, and for a long time I had been looking for it.

You get two weeks after you do a shoe where you can test whether it's good or not - if you're going to like it in 20 years. Then I know that it's going to be my shoe for a long time. That doesn't happen very often, but it happens.

People walk differently in high heels. Your body sways to a different kind of tempo.

I wish I was making shoes instead of reading or watching movies, which is what I do in my free time.

It's the only thing I really enjoy - so fresh, even now that I'm doing the new sampling. I'm dying to go to the factory, which is like nobody's idea of fun. But it's mine.

I really connect with Victoria Beckham's desire to do something that she wants to do. Of the girls we've been talking about, she's one of the few that has this incredible sort of "I want to do it, and I want to do it well."

The greatest shoemaker in England for many, many decades; he used to be the royal shoe-maker for the Queen Mother. This is where I learnt my trade.

I'm loyal to my friends, but I have so few now.I force myself to see people when they're here. Or when I'm here. I don't live in England that much now in the sense that I spend time in factories. I'm such a factory man now. This is really what I enjoy doing.

What is fashion? It's discipline. Discipline and a credo to do only the best, down to the smallest detail.

I only saw one collection of Victoria Beckham, and I thought it was very much like Pierre Cardin or Marcel Rochas dresses. She's thought about it, and she knows what she wants. And people buy it, so that means she works. She has this incredible will power to do something that she likes to do. And I love that. I respect that.

I don't think about myself very much.

My shoes are special shoes for discerning feet.

You realize how much fun we did have, with no money at all. We'd stay in peoples' homes in Tangiers. When you're young, you invite yourself.

In London I feel free; nobody bothers anyone and everyone is free to express themselves.

The gimmicky thing I'm not very keen on.

When somebody wants to work and believes in something, it doesn't matter if you're well known or rich or whatever it is.

I couldn't care less about business.

Trends don't interest me.

I like women with style to wear my shoes.

I don't know why my shoes are so popular - I am always surprised and mystified by it.

I eat a lot of chocolate.

When I was a boy I remember the women, how they dressed, how they behaved, what was important to them at the time. Like Lee Marvin and Gloria Grahame in The Big Heat.

Shoes are the quickest way for women to achieve instant metamorphosis.

Men tell me that I've saved their marriages. It costs them a fortune in shoes, but it's cheaper than a divorce. So I'm still useful, you see.

The secret of toe cleavage, a very important part of the sexuality of the shoe; you must only show the first two cracks.

Alas, passion is conducive to certain other things because when you have too much passion and you have too much work, you possibly end up having black holes. The danger is too much passion.

I'm relating to a period that doesn't exist anymore.

I forget about the diseases that I have. I don't want to know.

I am not a movie star or a football player, I just do my thing.

I think I am one of the smallest surviving brands.

Passion is passion. It's a sort of madness and possession of what you do or what you think. This is the difference of life: passion and commerce, which most of the people know as "P.C." But people have just got "C" now instead of "P."

I never wanted to be the most famous, the most beautiful, the most extravagant.

I always love China, especially the old China.

I do think one should have clean feet.

It was so interesting that the girls were moving in such a different way.

Maintenance is terribly important.

I do enjoy my own company. I cannot imagine anybody entertaining me more than I do. If it sounds selfish, I don't care. I made it a religion almost.