Blah, blah Blahnik’s

I LOOKED at the shoe and felt no emotion. It was just a shoe; a practicality. Then I woke up. What a nightmare!
To make matters worse, the words resounding in my terror-filled brain were: “You have to see my Manolo Blahnik’s.”
Usually, when people visit Las Vegas, they take back Elvis-inspired trinkets, lucky chips or in the most extreme cases a marriage certificate. Not my friend, the new bride, and may I add not a Vegas-inspired bride.
No, nestled in her living room display cabinet, next to the Edinburgh Crystal and the Royal Doulton Bride figurine is a brand spanking new pair of Mr Blahnik’s finest.
Now I have done the research, and I’ve worked out roughly how much they cost — an admission that as yet has not passed her lips. I’m not even sure if her shoe-ridiculing husband knows.
So you don’t swoon over your cornflakes while reading this, I won’t disclose the figure, but let’s just say they were an investment.
After a major rise in popularity due to Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw, these shoes are now seen as a status symbol.
When Carrie found herself face-to-face with a mugger, she pleaded: “You can take my Fendi baguette, you can take my ring and my watch, but don’t take my Manolo Blahnik’s.”
What do you think he did?
Apparently now in the US of A ‘Manolo’ is being used as slang to describe very expensive, very beautiful shoes; even by the millions of people who have never actually seen a pair of Blahnik’s.
But I came, I saw and oh but for a fleeting moment, I touched these beautiful creations before the bride snatched the box off me, for being too rough with the tissue paper.
The most expensive shoes I’ve ever bought were £40 and came in paper similar to that in primary school toilets of the 80s, and not in fancy printed stuff with a luxurious drawstring bag.
They were truly magnificent.
Her poor husband sat in the corner scowling as my group of fully-grown women cooed at a pair of overpriced shoes like they were a pair of newborn twins: “You say Blahnik’s, I hear blah blah.”
It didn’t matter that they were about three sizes too small for me, because the new bride herself has only graced her feet with them a few times. They shall never be worn as shoes were meant to. And if you do the research you will know why.
On their return from a mini-break recently (oh to go on a mini-break) she told me she’d hidden them while they were away. Never mind the widescreen TV, DVD player, XBox etc.
The husband says there are three of them in their marriage; him, his beloved, and the website of a highly popular shoe store. He can’t seem to get her attention, she’s so engrossed in it.
And it doesn’t stop at shoes. He hates shopping. He doesn’t like trailing round shops, trying things on. He prefers to by online.
Correction; his wife buys online for him. He can’t recognise when he looks good in something, so he leaves it up top her. I told him I thought he would look great in nothing.
It is just as well it seems my friends and I are kindred spirits when it comes to footwear — if not, well I hate to think.
I was so pleased when I found out my new beau loves to shop but as yet I have not seen this master at work. Perhaps he will be the first to be able to cope with my forays into fashion, because most people can’t stand it.
I have to get right in there, try everything on, leave the first thing in case I find something else, and go into every shop, just in case. So you wouldn’t find me shopping online.
Apparently the websites listed in your ‘favourites’ say a lot about you and your interests.
I checked mine to see if this was the case. Am I huge fan of a certain fictional surgeon, who frequently travels by coach, keeps up with absent friends by email, has no time to read the Sunday papers, and is constantly searching for something? Hmmmmmm.