Manolo - The Boy Who Made Shoes For Lizards

The documentary portrait "Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards" chronicles the life of a fashion icon who has been called one of the three great Spanish celebrities of the 20th Century, along with Picasso and Pedro Almod�var.

Director Michael Roberts follows Manolo Blahnik's life and career, beginning with his boyhood on a banana plantation in Santa Cruz de la Palma, in the Canary Islands. From there the legendary shoe designer went to Swiss boarding school and on to the University of Geneva, where he studied Politics and Law because his parents wanted him to work for the United Nations.

Contrarily, Manolo's ambitions were artistic. He changed his major to Literature and Architecture, eventually studying at the �cole des Beaux-Arts and the Louvre Art School. But his real education came from working at a vintage clothing shop in Paris.

He moved to London where the fashion world was revolting from its traditions (mostly its exclusive presence in Paris) and creating a stir all its own. There he began to meet people and make connections, due in part to his immaculate personal appearance and his distinct, almost anachronistic sense of style.

On a trip to New York he met Diana Vreeland, the editor-in-chief of Vogue, who looked at his portfolio told him to focus on shoes. He did, and soon Ossie Clark invited Manolo to create footwear for a runway show.

With a tireless work ethic, Manolo moved from one accomplishment to another, becoming the second man ever to be featured on the cover of U.K. Vogue and opening his own boutique. When Princess Diana was spotted wearing his shoes he became a household name. He brought his product to the U.S. where wealthy Americans were feasting on the excesses of the 1980s.

Told through interviews with Manolo and some of his most ardent admirers from Rihanna to Rupert Everett, and including Anna Wintour, Naomi Campbell, Karlie Kloss and Andre Leon Talley, this documentary is as glorious and trivial as fashion itself.

Seeming to model himself on vain and affected personalities like celebrity designer and photographer Cecil Beaton, Manolo created a persona of aesthetics -- an apolitical look at life through rose-colored glasses.

The mystique of footwear for woman, he realized, was in making a practical item completely impractical and bringing out the sex in shoes. (Toe cleavage. Did you realize that was a thing?) But the man himself was no fetishist. He always lived an isolated life, repulsed by the noise and smell of people. Consequently, he never shared a living space as an adult, and he never had a partner. This, the personal and most fascinating part of the Manolo story, is quickly brushed aside. Neither the designer nor the documentarian shares much about the inner workings of the man in this portrait. Like the shoes themselves, this movie comes within inches of vulgarity. And then it stops.

Included on this Blu-ray disc are two picture galleries, a short featurette (a sort of a pitch for movie itself) and a theatrical trailer.

"Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards"
DVD
$19.98
www.musicboxfilms.com/