Manolo Blahnik Quotes

I think I make shoes quite okay.

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.

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.

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.

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

About half my designs are controlled fantasy, 15 percent are total madness and the rest are bread-and-butter designs.

Really, the '70s and '80s were a blur.

The most tragic moment of my life was the first show I ever designed for. I had been asked to make shoes for Ossie Clark's show in the early '70s. I was so inexperienced that I didn't put the steel in the heels of the shoes, which is required to support the shoe and the wearer. So the girls came out walking very strangely in these rubber, bendy high-heeled shoes I had made. I thought 'Oh dear god! This is the end of me.' But after the show, even David Hockney and Cecil Beaton said to me 'It was so interesting that the girls were moving in such a different way.'

I don't consider myself a fashion designer.

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

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 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.

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

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.

I always love China, especially the old China.

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

I love exaggerated, and I love eccentric, but you must be comfortable. Otherwise it is nonsense. There is nothing charming about a woman who cannot walk in her shoes.

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'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'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.

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

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

Peter Hinwood found all these old pictures - Polaroids - and when I saw them, I just didn't believe that the person in them was connected with me. I was in a hotel room with one of those front-and-back mirrors, and I thought, Who the hell is that? I used to be thin as a rake. I used to have the nice-shaped pecs. It's sad. No, it's not sad, it's the reality, and I've accepted this now.

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

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'm a doodler. It was my first job as a boy, and I still do it. At night I keep a block of paper and a pencil with a huge piece of string next to me. When I have an idea, I grab the string and just doodle.

I don't belong to anyone.

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.

My most treasured clothing item is first suit that I made - acid green. It was disgusting, but I love it. It's been mended a million times, but I still wear it.

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

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.

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

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 get more tired by travelling than anything.

Maintenance is terribly important.

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

If I was a woman, I would be dressed in the same thing for a month and just change my hat and gloves. Maybe my shoes too; yes, I see what you mean but, really, it's jewels that change an outfit.

I don't think about myself very much.

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

You put high heels on and you change.

I'm going to do what I do, even more exaggerated. This is my attitude always. I don't betray myself at all.

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.

My shoes are special shoes for discerning feet.

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.

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

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

The only people that come to my mind in the last years are Lee McQueen and John Galliano. Truly, truly . . . How do I say? Full of ideas. Full of the smell. They just had this incredible passion for what they did.

I am insecure. Everyone's insecure.