They’ve straddled a horse en route to a NYC discothèque, landed a shout-out in a Jay-Z and Bey song and been stolen off the feet of one of TV’s most iconic characters. And yet, those are just a few moments that made Manolo shoes famous — along with their creator, Manolo Blahnik, who celebrates 40 years of success this year. And it was all kick-started by chance.
“It sounds ridiculous, but I never really had much thought about what I was going to do,” Blahnik tells The Post from London.
But all that changed in 1970 when some well-connected friends introduced him to then US Vogue editor Diana Vreeland.
At the time, the 28-year-old Spaniard was considering a profession in set design. In looking for advice, he brought his portfolio to the famed force in fashion whose enthusiasm over his shoe sketches — a minor yet whimsical detail in the stage work he showed her — spoke volumes.
She told Blahnik to break down the sets and start building shoes instead.
Luckily for Carrie Bradshaw (and her real-life followers) he spent the next few years learning the craft.
In 1972, British designer Ossie Clark tapped him to create footwear for his runway show, and a year later he opened his own shop in London’s Chelsea neighborhood.
The first man to grace the cover of British Vogue — alongside Anjelica Huston in 1974 — Blahnik credits industry doyennes like Grace Coddington, Beatrix Miller and Italian writer and style icon Anna Piaggi with driving his career’s rapid ascent.
Though wearing his designs has always come with a high price (pairs start at $500), Blahnik says it’s passion, not profit, that excites him. “When I started, people didn’t think about making money,” he says. “It was an innocent era. You did things because you loved what you were doing.”
Blahnik’s shoes arrived in the US, first at Bloomingdale’s in 1977, and later at the Madison Avenue store he opened in 1979. Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, fashion-conscious women found both style and comfort in his pumps and sandals.
Then, in 1998, a fictitious girl-about-town started dropping his name and drooling over his designs in storefront windows.
“Everything that unfolded with ‘Sex and the City’ unfolded as a happy surprise to all of us,” says costume designer Patricia Field, who first discovered ‘Manolos’ in the early-’80s when she and Blahnik were both building their careers in fashion.
Field and “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker shared an affinity for his footwear, Parker having discovered them at the now-defunct Madeleine Gallay boutique in Hollywood.
“When [the writers] became aware early on that the fashion element was strong in the show, they played to it,” Field explains.
As a result, Blahnik’s Manhattan flagship became an instant tourist attraction, and the designer’s annual appearances at Neiman Marcus stores reached rock-star proportions with hundreds lined up for his autograph — on a pair shoes, of course.
“I never ever dreamed that it would be so huge!” Blahnik says.
He’s also received several accolades from the industry, starting with two Accessory Designer of the Year awards from the British Fashion Council — in 1990 and 1999.
Being the designer Anna Wintour chooses to click-clack around town in could be another achievement. According to British Vogue, Blahnik tweaked his “Callasli” shoe for the editor in 1994, and she has barely taken the nude pair off since.
Celebrities also covet his shoes: Rihanna wore a strappy pair for a night out in Sydney, while newlywed Jessica Biel strut down a recent red carpet in silver sandals.
With no plans of retiring, 70-year-old Blahnik, who still draws and cuts every design bearing his name, says his drive comes from watching his creativity materialize. “When I see [a shoe] done I say, ‘Oh, it’s beautiful!’ ” he enthuses. “Or sometimes I say, ‘Oh my God! What a disaster!’ ”
