Why it belongs in ORBIS
Spanish designer of women's luxury footwear. Known for the Hangisi pump. Born in the Canary Islands and based in London.
Manolo Blahnik was born in the Canary Islands to a Spanish mother and Czech father, and it was Diana Vreeland who aimed him: reviewing his 1971 portfolio, she declared he should do "shoes, just shoes." London got the result — the Old Church Street shop opened in 1973 and remains the mothership of the most famous name in women's footwear.
He still draws every shoe by hand and carves his own lasts, and the results carry his signatures: the Hangisi's jeweled buckle on satin (Carrie Bradshaw's proposal shoe — Sex and the City made "Manolos" a common noun), the BB pump's perfect plainness, mules descending from his early Ossie Clark collaborations. Production is Italian, standards are his alone, and the CFDA, British Fashion Council and a CBE have all said their piece.
Family-owned still — his niece Kristina runs the company — the house sells what Blahnik has drawn for five decades: the shoe as small architecture, frivolity executed with total seriousness.