"At first he had a longing for a book in black and white, but I told him, much as I love it, it would short-change us both, severely limit me expressively, and not give a correct record of his work, where colour is as important as anything else. Interestingly, in retrospect, he never said a shoe was portrayed unflatteringly, other than once he thought a shoe loomed too large in the picture."Boman recalls only two instances of disapproval: Blahnik nixed the use of playing cards as props, and perhaps, given the present climate, rather shrewdly requested Boman retouch out two lines of icing sugar on a mirrored table next to a white marabou-feathered boot Kate Moss is indeed one of Blahnik's great friends Not surprisingly, the supermodel gets a name check. "Stuff your shoes with acid-free tissue paper and they'll keep their shape forever," advises the designer.The concept for the book followed the box-office success of Blahnik's exhibition at London's Design Museum in 2003. All this and a style tip on the upkeep of your favourite Manolos. Within a handful of the exquisite colour plates there are a glut of references: Helmut Newton, Jacqueline Susann (author of Valley of the Dolls), Anita Ekberg, the fashion fillustrator Ren?ruau, the cool glamour of nurses ("I was infatuated with one Sister Ruth," muses Manolo, "then one day I saw her in her street clothes and the magic was just gone"), Margot Fonteyn, Nureyev and "a little Lutheran gloom". the Queen has ordered all her wigs for Le Hammeau to be built over armatures of chicken wire.
She thought it would contribute to the rusticity!"In one line Blahnik spans almost 40 years of film history, creating a fanciful costume drama rendezvous between two screen goddesses. At times the back and forth of the repartee flows so fast and furious as to resemble a pair of finely matched fencers This book is the ultimate in cultural sparring. Cyranna (all Blahnik's shoes are given names), a soft vole brown and dusty pink rosette shoe perches on top of a silver skein of hair on a wig stand, beside a four-poster bed. The text reads as follows: "While filming Barry Lyndon, Marisa Berenson pays a visit to Norma Shearer on the set of Marie Antoinette." Eric: " ... "How corny!" is how Manolo refers to an orange spaghetti sandal sitting in a colander of pasta, while a picture featuring a lace-up in a line up of corn-on-the-cob elicits, "The raffia flat is inspired by what some Spanish peasants wear. It didn't sell one pair!"The running commentary within the book is far from one-sided. The form of the book was established right from the start - never mixing text and picture on the page The bursts of dialogue convey how our minds work.
It's trying to explain our creative processes."These "bursts of dialogue" are also very funny. "It's how we speak to each other," explains Boman when I speak to him later "A scholarly text would be deadly pretentious. Standing in her living room, with its high ceilings and big windows, surrounded by her eclectic collection of furniture, photos and random ephemera, she clearly practises what she preaches. Her home is a colourful jumble of thrifty one-offs and personal memorabilia. As Garnett glides around the flat she points out the photographs and mementos that crowd the walls and surfaces. There she is with Kate Moss and Anita Pallenberg sitting in a little boat on the Thames in a photograph by Juergen Teller for Vogue. On the wall are framed pictures of Iggy Pop laughing for the camera in a shoot for Cheap Date. On the fridge is an entry ticket to Graceland from a road trip around Tennessee with her dad.
