Iconic Spanish Shoe Designer Embraces His Czech Roots

Opening today in Prague, a new exhibit paying tribute to Manolo Blahnik displays over 200 pairs of shoes and 80 sketches

Expats.cz Staff Jason Pirodsky

Written by Expats.cz Staff,  Jason Pirodsky Published on 11.08.2017 14:58:09 (updated on 11.08.2017) Reading time: 1 minute

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Fashion designer Manolo Blahnik became a household name during the six-year run of HBO series “Sex and the City” thanks to fictional character Carrie Bradshaw’s obsession with the Spanish designer’s signature heels.

What most people may not know about Blahnik is that the stiletto master has Czech family origins—his father, who owned a pharmacy near Kampa before WWII, fled Prague following the Nazi occupation.

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Fittingly, a new exhibit, “The Art of Shoes,” opens at Museum Kampa today, revealing a number of details about Blahnik’s rise to worldwide fame along with enough eye candy to make Ms. Bradshaw swoon.

Photo: Museum Kampa / Facebook
Photo: Museum Kampa / Facebook

“The possibility of having an exhibition in Prague is very personal for me, my father was a Czech. I am extremely looking forward to this installation and working with people who have the same roots as me,” Blahnik recently told Czech Forbes. 

Blahnik himself was on hand in Prague yesterday to open this tribute to his life’s work, a retrospective showcasing 212 shoes and 80 sketches, including several styles featured in Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film Marie Antoinette. 

Earlier this summer he created a limited-edition pair of Manolos paying homage to Czech Bohemian imagery and folklore, embellished with fuchsia pom-poms and decorated with almost 100 Preciosa crystals. 

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Shoe for Prague
Shoe for Prague

The touring exhibition has appeared in Milan, Italy, and St. Petersburg, Russia. After Prague, it heads to Madrid and then to Toronto. 

Museum Kampa will be the only museum in Central Europe to display this unique tribute to a true artist.

The Art of Shoes runs through November 12.

For opening times and tickets see www.museumkampa.com.

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