Kristina Blahnik never wanted to join her uncle Manolo Blahnik in the family business of running a shoe empire. She became an architect instead. Little did she know that when she (inevitably) joined the iconic brand in 2009, first to help Mr. Manolo manage the business, then fully in 2013 as CEO, this inherited role would be closer to architecture in more ways than one.
For one, creating a shoe requires just as much engineering as design. “Heels are tested to within failure, machines stretch and check the pressure points, then there's the placement of the strap across the foot or ankle…there's so much technicality that goes into it,” Kristina tells me over our call, the sun beaming through the windows of her Sussex home. Her black Christopher John Rogers dress lined with rainbow-coloured stripes feels like a burst of modernism amidst the rustic countryside decor. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.
But what architecture also teaches you is patience and forward planning, often mapping out plans that will only come into fruition after decades. “You trained to imagine an object or even a way of circulation or a reflection or a horizon in the future,” she says. “I use that skill more than anything in the world that I live in now. It's about looking at what the next 500 years look like for the name Manolo Blahnik and charting the pathway to it.”
Kristina often describes herself as having “grown up in a shoebox.” Her uncle Manolo Blahnik, now fondly known as the “Emperor of Shoes” for his elegant creations found on the feet of royalty and Hollywood A-listers alike, opened his first store in London in 1973, but ran most of his operations from the family home with his sister, Kristina's mother Evangelina Blahnik. Kristina has fond memories of the time, bounding home from primary school to “the shop” usually to watch Mickey Mouse, but occasionally to find music legends like Grace Jones belting out a song from her latest album playing on the cassette and her mother and Manolo dancing in the living room. “These were impromptu magical moments that only happen when you feel comfortable with each other, and this is why I feel that even though we're a medium-sized company now of 250, including our factory artisans, I want us to still have this community.”
While Kristina cites many women in her circle of CEOs in the fashion industry as inspiration—Colleen Caslin, head of Sidney Garber jewellery, Alison Loehnis, former president of Net-A-Porter and Elizabeth von der Goltz, former CEO of Browns and Chief Fashion and Merchandising Officer at FARFETCH to name a few—but it was her mother that has inspired her style and way of moving through the world. “It's the elegance and the modesty with which she's done things; she was a trailblazer in the ‘80s and ’90s as the managing director of the brand, which was essentially the CEO, and she was the only woman in the room in many instances."
What she admires most is her mother's "uncompromising belief in what is right.” Kristina takes this attitude with her to work every day, applying it most often to external pressures to diversify their shoe offering into trainers. “That would've been an easy win to design a sneaker and for that to be a success," she says. "But that would be the wrong decision to make because then you lose credibility within yourself, within your team, and within your community. So even if it will mean losing market share to other brands, that's okay. The fact that we've kept our categories quite narrow, people will come to us very clear about what they're going to be getting."
What customers have come to expect are delicate suede stilettos and jewel-encrusted mules so enduring they became a key plot point in cult '90s television show Sex and The City. Needless to say, adding or detracting from this legacy is no small decision.
Since taking over the brand more than a decade ago, Kristina has carefully introduced several new styles to Manolo Blahnik, all with meaningful ties to the brand's roots. First was the espadrille, the only shoe made in Spain where Manolo is from (whereas the rest of the collection is manufactured in Italy) and a tennis shoe, lest you might be led to believe Kristina hates trainers. She doesn't, they just need make sense. “They are a nod to my grandfather who was a big tennis player," she says. "I said to my uncle, if we're going to do something that has a rubber soul, it needs to be minimalist.”
Beyond branching into new styles, Kristina has also brought the brand into new markets, celebrating the opening of their Shanghai store last autumn, marking the first time Manolo Blahnik made landfall in China after 22 years of litigation to win their trademark back, and now opening in Milan this year, the city where their shoes are made.
Everything Kristina does is considered, as informed by her architecture training, and designed to last through generations. “If you invest in something that we've created, it's meant to stand the test of time,” she says. "It's meant to be a work of art, a piece of sculpture, which is why I feel we're not fashion. We would never define ourselves as a fashion brand. Manolo himself called himself a cobbler (which is a little bit too simplified for my terms), but he's an artisan, and I think what we are is we are a specialist artisan object that happens to be a shoe.”
It's this very conviction that has allowed Kristina to remain steadfast even in these unpredictable times, and the idea of the distant future does not scare her the way it might some brands. When asked about her proudest moments so far, Kristina shares all the ways in which the brand is fostering the next generation of artisans through scholarships at UAL and eventually programmes at their factories and ateliers. In her blueprint for the future, what does success look like?
“I want be a part of bringing craft back into the front and centre of objects that we choose to have in our lives,” she says, “And I want people 20 years from now to come to us saying, I bought these Manolo Blahnik shoes 20 years ago, and I still hold onto them because they're part of my memory, they're part of my life.”
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