T magazine: The 25 Shoes and Bags That Transformed Fashion
Manolo Blahnik’s BB Pump, 2008
Even as a child, Manolo Blahnik was obsessed with footwear: Growing up in the Canary Islands, he’d make tinfoil booties for garden lizards. In his 20s, he studied to be a set designer, but a 1969 meeting with the fashion editor Diana Vreeland put him on a different path; three years later, he was presenting his first shoe collection in London as part of an Ossie Clark fashion show. For the half-century since, “Manolos” have been a red-carpet mainstay. The best-selling BB style, created in 2008, is a pointed-toe court pump with a low-cut top line and a wrapped stiletto heel inspired by, Blahnik has said, the 1950s and ’60s style of Brigitte Bardot. As Madonna once noted, “Manolo Blahnik’s shoes are as good as sex. And they last longer.”
Timberland’s Yellow Boot, 1973
In 1973, Nathan Swartz, the Odessa-born, New Hampshire-based owner of Timberland (which was called the Abington Shoe Company at the time), introduced a waterproof nubuck boot made by fusing leather uppers to rubber soles without stitching. Initially worn by construction workers, Timberlands, as they became known, soon transcended their rugged origins and were embraced, beginning in the late ’70s, by everyone from the Milanese jet set to British ravers. But it wasn’t until the ’90s, with the mainstream rise of R&B and hip-hop, that Timbs, as they subsequently became known, grew into a cultural phenomenon. Rappers like Tupac, the Notorious B.I.G. and members of the Wu-Tang Clan paired them with baggy pants; in 1994, Nas mentioned them on the track “The World Is Yours.” Soon, female artists including Aaliyah, Missy Elliott and Mary J. Blige were also wearing the clunky lace-ups, leading fashion at large to embrace the boots, too. Even Manolo Blahnik approved: In 2002, he released a high-heeled lace-up homage called the Oklamod. In a 2023 documentary celebrating the boot’s 50th anniversary, the New York rapper Rakim explained its appeal. “It’s more than just a boot, man,” he said. “It’s like a way of style.”
Nike’s Air Jordan 1 Basketball Shoe, 1985
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that modern sneaker culture was born on April 1, 1985: the day Nike released the Air Jordan 1. Created as part of a five-year, $2.5 million endorsement deal with Michael Jordan, then a 21-year-old Chicago Bulls rookie, the shoe was designed by the Nike creative director Peter Moore, with innovative details including a padded ankle collar and fixed straps on the forefoot for extra stability. Its name alluded to both Jordan’s dunking skills and the high-tech pocket of compressed air added to the sole to cushion impact. Its bold black-and-red colorway violated the NBA’s dress code, which at the time required footwear to be 51 percent white, and the league fined the Bulls $1,000 the first time Jordan wore them on the court — threatening the team with greater fines and additional penalties should he wear them again — which only made them more covetable. Nike expected to sell 100,000 pairs in the shoe’s first year; instead, it shipped 1.5 million in the first six weeks. Although the Air Jordan 1 wasn’t the first sneaker created for a basketball player — Walt Frazier-branded Pumas and Adidas shoes with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s likeness on the tongue both came out in the ’70s — the deal between Nike and Jordan, in which Jordan received royalties on every sale, was revolutionary.
Terry de Havilland’s Snakeskin Platform, Circa 1970
From python boots for Rudolf Nureyev to ankle-strapped pumps for Tim Curry in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975), Terry de Havilland made some of the most rock ’n’ roll footwear of the 1970s — he once told the Guardian that he’d “designed most of my shoes on acid.” At age 5, the British cobbler started working in his parents’ shop, Waverley Shoes, which catered to West End ladies in the postwar era. In 1960, after a brief spell as an actor (around which time he changed his name from Terrence Higgins), de Havilland, then 22, officially joined the family business and began reinventing his father’s 1940s platform styles in iridescent snakeskin. While platform shoes have been around since the 1930s, de Havilland’s psychedelic, five-inch-tall versions were especially popular during the glam rock era. In 2004, a BBC documentary revealed that Miu Miu had produced a near exact copy of his signature style. (The Italian brand reportedly agreed to pay him a settlement.) “I think they empower women,” de Havilland, who died in 2019, told T about his shoes. “They give you your own little stage to stand on.”
Launer’s Jubilee Bag, 1972
Over the course of her seven-decade reign, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain was known for her strict uniform: brightly colored dresses and coats accessorized with a three-strand pearl necklace, a jeweled brooch, block-heeled shoes and a variety of custom box-shaped bags with top handles from the British leather-goods maker Launer. Founded in 1941 by Sam Launer and owned since 1981 by Gerald Bodmer, the West Midlands-based brand was awarded a royal warrant in 1968 — which meant having permission to display the royal arms on its products — but its history with the House of Windsor dates to the 1950s, when, legend has it, the Queen Mother first acquired a Launer purse and gave one to her daughter. From the ’60s on, whether it was the Eleanor bag, made specially for the royal wedding of Prince William to Catherine Middleton in 2011, or the Jubilee, a popular 1972 style reintroduced in 2022 to celebrate the queen’s Platinum Jubilee, Queen Elizabeth II was rarely seen without one tucked under her arm — much to the reported dismay of Sir Hardy Amies, one of her longtime dressmakers, who felt it ruined the flow of his garments. Formal and structured, with a gold clasp in the shape of the brand’s emblem, a twisted rope, the bag epitomized the queen’s practical approach to fashion: She occasionally commissioned bespoke touches like a coin purse and longer handles for easier handshaking. She’s also rumored to have used the bag as a secret signaling device; according to the royal historian Hugo Vickers, she’d switch it from her left arm to her right to indicate that she’d grown tired of a conversation.
