Biography of Fashion Designer - Manolo Blahnik Essay

chronicle of flair Designer - Manolo Blahnik - Essay ExampleThe essay Biography of Fashion Designer - Manolo Blahnik dis directs the Manolo Blahniks biography. Together with Evangeline, his younger sister, they both underwent education at home since their family often travelled to Paris and Madrid. It was during those times when his interest in horseshoe-making started under the influence of his mother improvising and making of Catalan espadrilles from ribbons and laces. Blahnik enrolled for a politics and law major at the University of Geneva but later shifted to literature and architecture. After graduating in 1965, Blahnik move to Paris to study art at L moolah des Beaux-Arts and Lcole du Louvre while working at GO, a vintage clothing store. In 1968, he moved to London and enrolled at a language school to master the English language but worn-out(a) most of his time watching films in the Leicester Square cinemas. To step up his career of becoming a stage set source, Blahnik w ent to New York to present his portfolio of drawings and set designs to Diana Vreeland, then editor of US Vogue. Vreeland looking at Blahniks designs exclaimed How amusing. Amusing. You can do accessories very well. Why dont you do that? Go arouse shoes. Your shoes in these drawings are so amusing, referring to a sketch of a fantastical shoe which crept up the ankle entwined with ivy and cherries. After that inspiring moment, Blahnik went back to London in 1972 and begun designing for Zapata, a boutique on Old church Street in Chelsea (Craven). He started designing mens shoes.... Ossie Clark, a flashy fashion designer, was quick in noticing Blahniks talent and so requested for Blahniks designs for his next runway show. Eventually, Blahniks shoes got popular for Vogue editors even for a vintage Hollywood star like Lauren Bacall. He was more inclined to learn the craft of shoe-making, and thus, searched for a troopsufacturer in Walthamstow, north east of London to perfect this skil l. Thereafter, British Vogue made Blahnik as the first man ever to appear on its cover in 1974 (Design Museum). A year before being the cover of the famous magazine, Blahnik bought Zapata from its owner with the help of a ?2,000 loan. He ran the business with his sister, Evangeline. The designer continued working with the bad fashion icons like Jean Muir, Fiorucci and Ossie Clark. Slowly, he made his market in the US by creating a collection for Bloomingdales in 1978, opening his first store at Madison Avenue, New York in 1979, and designing shoes for Perry Ellis in 1980. Blahniks business took off in the US in the early mid-eighties when George Malkemus, a young copywriter, became his US business partner, leaving him and Evangeline taking charge of the business in Europe. Blahniks fame became unstoppable as he was also designing shoes for Calvin Kleins collections in 1984 (Design Museum). Years after, the designers creativity and hardships were recognized as he received a special award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) in 1987, Accessory Designer of the Year by the British Fashion Council in 1990 and 1999, La Aguja de Oro (The Golden Needle) in Spain in 2001, and La Medalla de Oro en Merito en Las Bellas Artes by Juan Carlos I in 2002. He was also honored with a retrospective exhibition of his drawings, memorabilia and