His success has lasted from setting up as a shoe designer in a Chelsea boutique in the 1970s to the present day, with American Vogueโs Anna Wintour declaring โThe truth is, I wear no other shoes except hisโ.
Blahnik has collaborated with many leading fashion designers โ from Ossie Clark at the start of his career and John Galliano at Dior at its height โ but Blahnikโs greatest achievement is to have made footwear, previously subservient to the overall concept of a look, the most important of all accessories.
His many covers and features in the pages of Vogue reveal that wearing a pair of โManolosโ is to be utterly transformed; in Blahnikโs dreamy, handmade creations, a woman can reinvent her personality. She is a Lolita in his Mary-Janes and a red carpet diva in his satin mules. Or as Madonna once put it, with characteristic bluntness: โHis shoes are wonderful, and they last longer than sex.โ