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.'
Manolo BlahnikI 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.
Manolo BlahnikI'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.
Manolo BlahnikI 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.
Manolo BlahnikI'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.
Manolo BlahnikI 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.
Manolo Blahnik