FASHION | Manolo Blahnik Debuts A Fantastical Coloring Book With A Philanthropic

During quarantine, many people have become reacquainted with some of the simpler pleasure in life: puzzling, board games, and the like. Now Manolo and Kristina Blahnik are contributing the chicest coloring book imaginable into the mix as part of the company’s SIMPLE PROJECT launched last year. ‘Smiling has many proven health benefits and we wanted to share some of what we have found in helping us’, writes Kristina from her dining room – turned – home office in Sussex.

This is not an all fun-and-games project, though. Like COVID-19, mental illness is an invisible affliction, and this effort is designed to support the valiant efforts of England’s Mental Health Foundation, says Kristina, draw attention to the organization’s ‘specific guidance on how to deal the mental health impacts that the pandemic is having, from management tips to acts of kindness’.

Blahnik, the magician of shoes whose creation filled Carrie Bradshaw’s closet, has selected the shoe drawings available to download and color himself. Yes, there are some of his famously slender stilettos. ‘I chose sketches which are very personal to me and meaningful, in light of such an important cause’, the designer explains. ‘They all encapsulate different inspirations and memories of mine, locations which I am very fond of’. The Acanthus model, for example, makes reference to a plant from his native Canary Islands.

Currently in residence in Bath, Blahnik is maintaining his long standing practice of drawing every day. ‘Everything starts with a sketch!’ he exclaims via email. ‘Sketching is the act of me drawing my imagination’. His drawings are indeed fantastical, with whooshing, fluid lines, that give energetic form – and personality – to shoes that delight and tell stories.

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