Get inspiration from a shoemaker magnate history

Get inspiration from a shoemaker magnate history

Reebok, a British athletic-shoe company transplanted to Massachusetts, proclaimed, “Life is not a spectator sport.” And boy, did women listen. And it is we manufacturing industry should learn from.
In 1981, when singer Olivia Newton-John released her single “Physical,” she may have been dressed like an aerobics queen, but there was no mistaking what she was singing about: “There’s nothing left to talk about / unless it’s horizontally . . .” Suddenly a woman could be as assertive as a man. Money was the engine of the 1980s, and women had some of their own.
Before Manolo Blahnik was a famous shoemaker, he was an imaginative boy growing up in theCanary Islands with a chic mother who inspired his nascent love of art. In the early 1970s, after studying literature and architecture in Geneva, he put on his best red-and-white gingham suit and approached Vogue editor Diana Vreeland to show her his work.
Among sketches for the set of a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Blahnik included playful drawings of fashion accessories. After appraising his work, Vreeland offered her verdict:
The young shoemaker found the then-popular chunky platforms awkward and oppressive and favored shoes that made a woman’s foot look delicate. Unfortunately, on the catwalk, his springy heels buckled and Clark’s models couldn’t make it to the end. Blahnik understood that his technical expertise did not yet live up to his creative abilities, so he left London for Northampton -- the center of English shoemaking -- to study craftsmanship.
It wasn’t long before he rebounded. In 1974, the handsome designer appeared on the cover of British Vogue. The next year, he created the delicate gold sandals Bianca Jagger wore on her 30th birthday, riding a white horse into Studio 54. And by 1979 he opened a boutique in the U.S.
Blahnik’s shoes appealed to elegant women willing and able to pay top dollar for quality. He became familiar to the powerful women who ascended the corporate ladder in the 1970s and ’80s, women willing to invest in heels that communicated their authority. The new power pumps weren’t ***less, but they weren’t provocative either: Women in the workplace kept their toes covered and stuck to simple materials like matte leather with few embellishments. Shiny satin and buckles, studs and bows were for evening only.
There remained that class of women who wore spike heels, unconcerned with the vicissitudes of travel or weather, because a ride was always just a phone call or an arm gesture away.