Carrie Bradshaw had two great loves on the series "Sex and the City": Mr. Big, a conventionally successful man.

And Manolo Blahnik, a shoe so elegant that it became a symbol of successful femininity.

It is therefore not surprising that at some point Mr. Big Carrie does not ask for her hand - but for her foot, on which he puts a royal blue Hangisi, Manolo Blahnik's most famous shoe model.

Timeless elegance or extravagance of the past

Caroline O Jebens

Editor in the “Society & Style” department.

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Manolo Blahnik, the man, designed this shoe in 2008. To date, it is the best-selling model and the one that best embodies the work of the Spanish designer, who now lives in England and is now 80 years old: 16 centimeter high stilettos, with Covered in silk, a brooch with 144 crystals - a shoe that embodies timeless elegance by referring to an extravagance of the past: Blahnik was inspired for the Hangisi by Napoleon I, his wife Josephine and sister Pauline Bonaparte.

Blahnik's world is shaped by the aesthetics of bygone eras.

His photo book "Obsession und Passion", which appeared seven years ago, shows how firmly Blahnik is anchored in cultural history: films by Luchino Visconti, literature by Tomasi di Lampedusa, paintings by Francisco de Goya.

Blahnik is a "lonely artist, a polyglot, an encyclopedic, eccentric genius," fashion journalist Amy Fine Collins said of him.

Booties for lizards and dogs

Born on the Canary Island of La Palma, where his parents, a Czech and a Spanish, ran a banana plantation, the pretty story tells about him that he was a creative prodigy making tutus for lizards and booties for dogs out of silver paper.

Rather, it was his mother, as he himself emphasized, who taught herself and her son how to make shoes, made him read fashion magazines and introduced him to art.

Briefly Blahnik studied law in Geneva (he first wanted to be a diplomat), but graduated in literature and architecture and finally moved to Paris in 1965 to study art and stage design.

There he met Paloma Picasso, who encouraged him to pursue fashion.

In London he worked for fashion boutique Zapata (which he would later buy out), as a fashion journalist, photographer and buyer.

When he showed his costume designs to the then “Vogue” boss Diana Vreeland in New York in 1970, she is said to have replied infamously: Young man, concentrate on the extremities – i.e. the shoes.

He took her advice and two years later designed a collection for Ossie Clarke, a luminary of Swinging London.

That was when the "Cherry Shoe" was born—a sandal with faux cherries that tie around the ankle with green straps (to this day, Blahnik says this is his favorite design).

Model Twiggy and other It-Girls of the time started wearing his designs.