Post by Marc PerottiVolpelier

CARRIE BRADSHAW’S FAVORITE FOOTWEAR DESIGNER IS BACK WITH A VENGEANCE! 👠🗽🇪🇸 Manolo BLAHNIK, the famed Spanish shoemaker who became a household name as a result of being regularly featured on HBO’s iconic series Sex and the City, has opened a new store on New York’s Upper East Side, at 717 Madison Avenue. Located in a 1923 registered building, the boutique was designed by Blahnik himself, his niece Kristina (the company’s CEO since 2019) and by Paris-based interior decorator David Thomas (who also designed the brand’s Palais Royal store in the French capital city). The place is truly spectacular. It has two individual and contiguous storefronts; one leads into a room containing the women’s collection, the other to the men’s. Connected internally, each space has a distinct decor: Marble and plaster in a classical vein for her; blue lacquer for him, as well as a brass-topped bar bar intended for all clients. As usual, Blahnik has opted for his signature maximalist approach, which he considers an appropriate response to the restrictions of lockdown. The designer predicts a return to pleasure-seeking and sensuality “because fashion is sensual in any case.” But there’s more to it: in order to meet new consumer expectations for products with meaning and purpose in these times of pandemic, Blahnik is betting on value and substance: “People are just desperate now to get excited again, and buy. But a different kind of buying; buying things that they think would be necessary, [that are] really well made, [that] are going to last,” he told Vogue’s Laird Borrelli-Persson in the Fashion magazine’s June 2021 issue. As a result, exclusive to the Madison Avenue space will be a small capsule collection, called 717. “That’s the only way that I keep my integrity, my soul,” the designer comments, “because I want to do small things, concentrate on quality and lasting things.”