FASHION

HEAD OVER HEELS

Marie Antoinette superfan Manolo Blahnik tells Laura Craik why he didn’t hesitate when asked to sponsor the V&A’s new exhibition

It’s a testament to Manolo Blahnik’s joie de vivre that, at the age of 82, he has retained the sunny exuberance of a child. “I have a lizard in front of me right now – two, in fact,” he chuckles, speaking over the phone from Santa Cruz in the Canary Islands, where he has just finished lunch. “I’ve actually just eaten a tomato; it was so divine.”

As is his new collection, an exclusive capsule of 11 designs created to celebrate Marie Antoinette, the controversial French queen who is the subject of a major new exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Mr Blahnik has been a fan since childhood, his interest piqued by his mother reading him Stefan Zweig’s 1932 biography as a rather unconventional bedtime story. The queen’s aesthetic has been an obsession ever since, informing 50 years’ worth of his designs.

In fact, the exhibition is something of a full-circle moment for Mr Blahnik, who started his career by studying 18th-century shoes in the V&A’s archives. He didn’t hesitate when approached to sponsor the exhibition.