Manolo Blahnik Quotes

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

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

David Lynch is démodé now, if you look at his films. I looked at them the other weekend.

The imprint of Miss Hepburn is absolutely, totally present. Like it or not, she will be the most important look of the twentieth century.

I do think one should have clean feet.

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.

These are very dainty and superrefined, but really vile.

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.

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.

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

I've never been tempted to do these hideous furniture shoes.

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'd been to Saint Petersburg before, but there's been a change in people's minds. Maybe it's a fashionable thing, but people have returned to the churches. I went to a Russian Orthodox and a Catholic church - both of the queues, enormous!

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.

I eat a lot of chocolate.

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 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'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.

But it is hard to resist the feeling that 70th was some kind of golden age.

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

You'd see extraordinary-looking people around in the '70s. It was so exciting! You'd have mad people, like Gerlinde Kostiff riding around on her bicycle with a huge hat. Everybody was doing things. I don't have any bad memories of that period.

It's the only thing I get inspired by! I get inspired by dreams. Who cares about the rest?

Trends don't interest me.

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 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.

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

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.

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

I couldn't care less about business.

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 adore Jean-Louis Trintignant - even at 100 years old he's fabulous.

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

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

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 greatest luxury is being free.

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.

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

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

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."