Long, thin and sexy – it is definitely not about what you are thinking right now! However, we are talking about stilettoes. So, hold your horses for a moment. Fashion freaks will surely know what stilettoes mean and what are they to their dynamic fashion trends.
Stilettoes derived their name from ‘stiletto dagger’, a term which was used in the 1930s. Starting from being an inch to 10 inches long, they are sometimes defined as having the diameter at the ground of less than 1 cm. In the 1950s and 1960s, the original Italian-style stiletto heels were the much preferred fashion trends. After their demise in the mid-late 1960s, stiletto heels went through a sea change in their appearance. An original stiletto heel has a solid steel or alloy stem.
In the year 1974, Manolo Blahnik reintroduced a new design of stiletto heel and named it as the ‘Needle’. Similar heels were stocked at the big Biba store in London, by Russell and Bromley and by smaller boutiques. Old, unsold stocks of pointed-toe stilettos, and contemporary efforts to replicate them were sold in street fashion markets and became popular with punks, and with other fashion “tribes” of the late 1970s. Few years later, round-toe shoes with slightly thicker semi-stiletto heels, often very high in an attempt to convey slenderness were frequently worn at the office with wide-shouldered power suits. Till the1980s, this style was followed by a considerable fraction of people all over the world. However, by the 1990s, this style almost disappeared. Shoes with thick, block heels were hot fashion trends by then. But stiletto heels came back with a bang after 2000, when young women adopted the style for dressing up office wear or adding a feminine touch to casual wear, like jeans.
There is just one name which your mind can refer to when you talk about stilettoes these days – Manolo Blahnik. Yes, the man whose stiletto designs ushered a new definition of fashion in the popular American television soap series, ‘Sex and the City’. The world went crazy by looking at the stiletto designs that he introduced in the costume design department of this television series. Since 1972, when he was first introduced to Ossie Clark, then the most famous designer in London and who used his shoes, Manolo Blahnik’s career in the fashion industry started to catch a different pace altogether. All the four characters in the series, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte York Goldenblatt (Kristin Davis), Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and their craze for Manolo Blahnik’s stilettoes drove the audience crazy!
Manolo Blahnik stilettoes are probably the undisputed stilettoes in the world of fashion footwear today. And there will be no surprises if you start looking only for Manolo Blahnik stilettoes from now on. Just have a look at them and you will know why the world went crazy.
Siddhartha
Jabong UnPLUGGED!! 