‘Sex and the City’ Author Candace Bushnell on Her Magic Manolos

If Sexual intercourse and the Metropolis experienced a signature shoe, it would without the need of a doubt be the Manolo. At 400 bucks a pop, the footwear and ideal-promoting e-book-turned-strike sequence are two really stylish peas in a pod, thanks to creator and creator Candace Bushnell, the serious-lifetime Carrie Bradshaw, and a self-professed shoe lover just like her curly-haired protagonist. In her new one particular-female show “Is There Nevertheless Sex in The City?,” Bushnell boldly declares, “Do I have a shoe obsession like Carrie Bradshaw? No. Carrie Bradshaw has a shoe obsession simply because of me.” It all commenced with one unique pair that “changed her life”—the black patent leather knee-significant boots that she wore to her interview with The New York Observer, which led to her landing the infamous column, which led to the book, and then the Tv present, and so on and so forth.

In ELLE’s collection Apparel of Our Lives, we decode the sartorial alternatives designed by effective girls, and investigate how style can be employed as a tool for interaction. Beneath in her own phrases, Bushnell remembers how her potential was for good altered by (what else?) a pair of Manolos.

It’s a extremely Sex and the Town tale. I have a girlfriend—I called her Amalita Amalfi—and she was one particular of my quite a few good friends who I experienced started off producing about in the ‘80s, which is when I commenced composing about my Samantha, my Charlotte, my Miranda, and dozens of other women of all ages.

Not every little thing that’s on the Television set exhibit is fully accurate, but [Amalita] is a quite shut buddy of mine, and she was a actual fashionista. She was obsessed with clothing and shoes. Manolo Blahnik wasn’t genuinely acknowledged outside the house of trend circles at the time, and she was just nuts about them. A person day—coincidentally, when I was likely to job interview for a column at The New York Observer—she named me up and said that these astounding boots had occur in and I had to operate to Manolo and get them promptly. She was like, “These boots are gonna be magical. You’ll see. If you get these boots, your life will transform.” She was not kidding.

Remaining that this is New York, the place we all will need our minimal bit of luck, I went to go uncover them. They were black patent leather boots with a pointy toe, and they had been tremendous, tremendous stylish. When I found them, they miraculously had them in my sizing. They have been also $600, which, at the time, was definitely a whole lot of income. I hate to say this, but now people boots would possibly value $1,500.

Back in the ‘90s, New York was a place exactly where your shoes really mattered, due to the fact people today judged you by your sneakers. There was a saying that when you went into a restaurant, the maitre d’ would appear at your footwear. Designer only existed in Manhattan, London, Paris, and probably Chicago. It is not like today exactly where it is in all places. It was a sign that you belonged to this elite group of people today “in the know.” Individuals varieties of factors were being crucial signifiers. Fashion does not function like that any longer. Every little thing is much more extensively out there.

I think [Amalita] constantly experienced substantial hopes that I would satisfy some society guy as an alternative, I acquired the boots and had an interview with The Observer to be a gossip columnist. I was practically carrying the sneakers in a searching bag! I did not get the career, so I set the boots away, and then the editor-in-chief called me and provided me my own column. For the initially piece, I wore the boots and went to a sexual intercourse club called Le Trapeze, exactly where a photographer took a photo of me standing on best of a pile of rubbish in a towel carrying them. That was the commencing of Intercourse and the Metropolis. I guess they did bring me luck.

The 1994 Observer story showcasing Candace Bushnell exterior Le Trapeze carrying her Manolo Blahnik boots.

Courtesy of Candace Bushnell

The tale was referred to as “Swingin’ Sex? I Don’t Feel So …” Right before I went to Le Trapeze, I went to a supper for Karl Lagerfeld at Bowery Bar. I wore the boots there too—they worked for modern society and sex. They did it all!

When I bought the boots, I bear in mind the saleswoman telling me, “These are fabulous.” They were being unquestionably the sizzling boot, not to point out my initial pair of Manolos. Picture a a few and a fifty percent-inch heel with a zipper up the back again, all the way up to the knee. I wore them with every little thing, even to black-tie situations. You had to have something you could walk in, and I walked a large amount in all those sneakers. I even had rubber bottoms put on them. I wore them almost everywhere, for years.

20-seven several years afterwards, I even now have the boots—they’re even a prop in my present. I constantly hung onto them for the reason that I wore them on my initially assignment. I always imagined, “Someday, individuals are likely to know that these boots are specific. These boots were being manufactured for crafting.”

The opening strains of Sex and the City are about one females: “They vacation, they pay out taxes, they’ll spend $400 on a pair of Manolo Blahnik strappy sandals.” It is still accurate.

This job interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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