Men strike back with new Spanish shoe brand
02/06/2014
Manolete, or Manuel Rodríguez Sánchez, died after being gored by a bull in the summer of 1947, an event that provoked three days of national mourning in Spain. One of the ways in which his memory has stayed alive is through shoes that imitate the elegant slippers he wore in the bull-ring.
However, despite bullfighters enjoying acclaim as paragons of masculine skill, endurance, elegance and bravery, Manoletes shoes became a women’s fashion phenomenon, in a style of flats called the manoletina.
Manoletinos, created in 2013 by designer Ana Martínez and Javier Camacho, produces a few espadrille-style sandals for women, but has deliberately set out to make new versions of the famous bullfighter footwear’s footwear for men, low-heeled slipper shoes, sometimes with a short tongue, sometimes with none. Tassels in bright colours such as scarlet or mustard yellow provide a colourful contrast against black, brown and navy blue uppers.
“Our use of quality materials is fundamental,” Mr Camacho has said, pointing to the calf split uppers, goatskin lining and leather soles of a manoletino shoe. The shoes are made entirely by hand by artisans in Spain’s biggest shoe-manufacturing hub, Elche.
Ana Martínez is from a footwear design background: her grandfather, Martín Martínez, was the founder of footwear and leathergoods brand Martinelli.
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