Kristina Blahnik, Manolo's niece, took over as CEO in 2013
I first heard of Manolo Blahnik when I was ten years old, watching Carrie Bradshaw spend her life’s savings on the designer’s heels (and eventually getting robbed for them on the mean—if not label-savvy—streets of New York) in Sex and The City.
Bradshaw spent years waxing lyrical about the non-monetary value of her Blahniks, and I spent years taking note, creating wishlists of Hangisis, BBs and Camparis (the infamous “urban shoe myth” Mary Janes) to take my own city and career by storm.
But Blahnik had done so long before the rest of us, fictional or not.
After getting his degree in architecture and literature, Manuel (“Manolo”) Blahnik spent much of the 60s working in vintage clothing shops, fashion boutiques, and drawing fashion illustrations in his spare time.
When the illustrations ended up in front of Diana Vreeland, then-editor-in-chief of US Vogue, in 1969, she told the Spaniard he had to make shoes. And so he did. By 1971, his somewhat-eponymous line was born.
Long before Sex and The City came along, Blahnik became the godfather of sole, creating unprecedented demand for luxury footwear, gracing the cover of British Vogue, and changing the course of 70s style—from platforms to stilettos—altogether.
Kristina and Manolo Blahnik at the premiere of "Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards" in 2017 ... [+]
It’s quite a legacy to be born into and, for Manolo’s niece and once-reluctant CEO Kristina Blahnik, one which took some time to come around to.
“From a very, very young age my parents and my uncle have really promoted being independent in my thinking and in my choices,” she tells me, looking impossibly radiant over Zoom. “I thought about studying economics or going into finance, but I helped out in all the summer holidays in the shop.
“I mean, we were just looking at an edit of our archives and I remember all the shoes from the 80s just because I was in the shop all the time,” she smiles.
Still, Blahnik resisted the family business, studying architecture at Cambridge before setting up a practice with her husband. “My spirit is an architect,” she says. “My spirit loves space, it loves objects, it loves shapes. I think that's really what I'm still carrying into what I do now.”
Until she joined the brand in 2009, the company was smaller than you might imagine; Manolo headed the company as Creative Director and Chairman, with Kristina’s mother, Evangelina, by his side as Managing Director. There was a total of six employees working at Manolo Blahnik HQ.
"I think I've been able to avoid all the stereotypes so far, touch wood," she laughs when I ask her about submitting to the family business. "I joined after I established my architecture business. It was at a juncture in my life that happened in my mid-30s. Many people find junctures in their lives where they have to take the right or the left road, and there was just an instinctive calling to my family going 'now's the right time, you have skills that you could transfer into the business and maybe give it a different perspective’. Maybe they weren't asking questions that I would be asking, coming from outside the industry.”
Though her role was not clearly defined at the start, she took over as CEO in 2013.
“I never had shoes to fill. I came in with my own shoes,” she jokes. “I don't think there were expectations of what I was to achieve or to do, which gave me an immense freedom. I had to prove my worth, prove that my uncle and mother could trust me and that I was going to protect their legacy. And you know, I continue to want to prove that, so I think the expectation is in myself. I want to prove to them that I will protect everything that they have built.”
And so she has, growing the team to over 80 people globally and expanding the company’s two standalone shops into 20 boutiques, with 312 stockists around the world.
“I very much believe in listening to people that aren't experts in a specific field because they'll look at it with a totally fresh set of eyes. I think I came and still am in it with a fresh set of eyes because I'm not embedded in the fashion world, I'm embedded in my family. With the perspective of an architect.”
As Kristina has grown into her role, she’s committed more time than most luxury CEOs to championing women and diversity within the industry. Most recently, as part of the judging panel of the Veuve Clicquot BOLD Woman Awards, the world's longest-running international business woman awards.
“In our industry there are a lot of female family leaders, like the Missoni family, and the women that I have met in the ten years that I have been fully immersed in the world of fashion have blown my mind.
“The level of innovation, the ability to think so dynamically, and just the passion..my goodness, it feels like a real sisterhood. I feel safe in it and that's such a wonderful feeling to have.”
She says she partakes in initiatives like the BOLD Woman Awards because the process is as inspirational as it is important. “We started the process pre-COVID. The judging panel had already met a couple of times, then everyone was introduced to the nominees, and there were just shivers going up and down my spine.
“I got goosebumps hearing where people came from, why they've done what they've done. It wasn't really what they've done, it was the why that really fascinated me. The journey that got them there."
Kristina’s own journey is atypical of the fashion industry—neither she, her mother, or uncle studied fashion or business. “He built his business purely from passion and creativity—and that passion radiated out of him. As a result, he made the most amazing friends and connections. My mother steered and navigate the business into the foundations of what it is today and, again, that wasn't done through any MBA, it was done through absolute common sense.
“I think people probably make assumptions that you need to have X, Y and Zed under your belt before you can get to the next stage, but actually sometimes it just takes a leap of faith. A lot of the women who have been nominated for the Bold Awards have done exactly that. They're not coming from a world of enormous expertise in certain areas, they've just taken that bold step forward and launched things that are innovative, disruptive, dynamic, exciting, and really paving the path for the future.”
Kristina Blahnik: “I very much believe in listening to people that aren't experts in a specific ... [+]
The company now produces four women’s collections each year, plus bags and a men’s collection, and Manolo still sketches every shoe himself, working with Kristina to bring each piece to fruition.
Which, in a global pandemic, has proved more difficult than ever. “Manolo always goes to the factories, and then I go a couple of days after him. Thank goodness the technology is what it is now, and thank goodness we have the relationships with our factories that we have.”
Last year the company acquired Re Marcello, an Italian factory it has worked with for decades, in an unprecedented but smart move for a small luxury player. For Manolo, whose shoes are highly detailed and technically challenging, investing in quality manufacturing is imperative.
"Nurturing relationships is so important,” says Kristina, as we discuss the brand’s first virtually-designed collection. “They understood what Manolo needed, Manolo was able to communicate to them, and they were able to interpret it virtually.
“There were cameras everywhere, pointing at desks, faces, sheets of paper everywhere,” she throws her hands up. “Humans are amazing at adapting, and we've done exactly that."
All while personally juggling the roles of mother, teacher, cook, cleaner, CEO and “everything that you've never expected to be doing all at the same time.”
A worthwhile challenge, in Kristina’s estimations. “I want to see more of Manolo's magic being seen by the world. I want to see the word 'art' in artisan, and that being the thing that is celebrated.”
