Latest news with #ManoloBlahniks
The Guardian
03-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Goodbye, And Just Like That: why it's the right time to end the cursed spin-off
And just like that, it was over. Friday's announcement by the showrunner Michael Patrick King that the third series of And Just Like That would be its last was met with little surprise and I suspect some relief. Following a forthcoming two-part finale, Carrie Bradshaw will hang up her Manolos for good – and not a moment too soon. If a theme could be pulled from the scrambled threads of the third season of the Sex and the City reboot, it is, I think, the question of appearance versus reality. Early on in the series, rattled by the discovery of a rat infestation in her meadowy garden, Carrie seeks comfort from Aidan, the man she's technically in a relationship with but due to a muddled and implausible arrangement, can't actually be with for five years. Carrie thought her garden was perfect, she says, 'but I just wasn't looking underneath'. After three seasons of And Just Like That the answer to what lies beneath is, I fear, nothing. Take the shoes – in a frankly criminal throwback to one of the best plotlines of the original show, Carrie namechecks a superior earlier episode as she complains about her curmudgeonly downstairs neighbour asking her to remove her stilettos in the house. In A Woman's Right to Shoes, Carrie's stolen Manolo Blahniks stood for, in no particular order, the gulf that can open between friends at different life stages, the way marriage and motherhood are celebrated when the milestones of an independent life are not, attention inequity in friendships, and a woman's right to spend her money however the hell she chooses. In Under the Table, Carrie's shoes signify … that she has a crush. That's not to say And Just Like That hasn't had its moments of insight – they just tend to be immediately binned in favour of something silly. Despite episodes averaging 40 minutes in length, this season has been the trimmest so far, with excisions both necessary (Che Diaz) and unexplained (Nya) giving the remaining characters room to breathe. Seema learns that the key to romance is not pretending to be someone else, but letting go of the desire to be seen in a certain way. Lisa flounders in her attempt to balance work and family life. Charlotte, previously troubled by such challenges as the cancellation of her dog, finally gets a storyline worthy of her default mode of hysteria when Harry is diagnosed with prostate cancer. Charlotte and Lisa's Park Avenue-set struggles with family life have some meat to them, but are bedevilled by every interaction with their children seeming to have come straight out of a toothpaste advertisement, or hell. See: Charlotte freaking out about not being able to work the party circuit to sell art as her smug children talk about veganism and polyamory, or the Todd Wexley family's cringe banter and Lisa's dismissive comments that her husband should start Ozempic. At times like these the show feels like a charmless sitcom about the super-rich. In Sex and the City, the weekends in the Hamptons were just the backdrop to more resonant storytelling – in And Just Like That, sometimes the setting is the story. In one scene, Charlotte begins to spiral at Tiffany's, wondering if life is as fragile as the glass cabinets around her – but what might have been a serious meditation on midlife and mortality morphs into an unfunny joke about which society events Bitsy von Muffling is and isn't invited to. Sometimes these vignettes verge on outright cruelty – after Lisa's nemesis is marked as a gauche interloper by her Michael Kors handbag (wrong kind of designer, honey), it's a lot harder to see her mother-in-law's pronouncement that she has no time for the working class as mere satire. Meanwhile, the inexplicably homeless Miranda deflowers a nun, becomes a meme and gains a girlfriend, who, in lieu of a personality, possesses two Italian greyhounds and vile British colleagues apparently scooped straight from the cutting room floor of Too Much. It's not until the 10th episode that we get to see Miranda, who barely resembles the beloved judgmental ice queen of Sex and the City, do the first Miranda-y thing of the entire series so far, when she stalks the woman her son got pregnant. The one bright spot of the season has been its treatment of Carrie's faltering relationship with Aidan. A standout episode in which she visits him in Virginia sees a diminished Carrie, too afraid to ask for what she wants, settling for the smallest thing he can offer her – a spot in the guesthouse. Carrie switches her magenta Vivienne Westwood for a 'sister wives' prairie dress, to attempt the role of cool country stepmum. But the performance of a happy blended family falls to pieces in a rare decent domestic scene, in which resentment and alienation explode into a conflict that ends with a broken window and a return to reality. The relationship eventually crumbles when Carrie realises that no matter how she changes for Aidan – selling her apartment, not being a brat in the countryside (remember Suffern?) – he cannot move past her previous infidelity. This, to me, is the point of returning to a story decades later: to show how people change, and how they don't. How the cracks in a relationship can run so deep that even the layering sediment of time can't fill them in, but only hide them. When Carrie finally ended it, I felt a tug of genuine emotion that can only come from having spent so much time with these characters. A lot has been made this season of the idea of the hate-watch, especially given Miranda's obsession with a Love Island-style show called Bi Bingo. 'I finally discovered the joy of hate-watching,' she says, in what I assume is meant to be a winning nod at self-awareness by the showrunners. The thing is, I don't believe that's what those of us who loved Sex and the City (for who else would bother watching And Just Like That through three unexceptional seasons?) were doing. I'd describe it as something closer to hope-watching. We wanted to see the characters we loved, women once so convincingly and lovingly drawn, being flirty, frivolous and fabulously dressed in New York City. But more than that, we held out hope that something substantial might still remain beneath the sparkle. In two episodes' time we'll finally know the answer – and if we're disappointed again, at least it'll be for the last time.
The Guardian
02-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Goodbye And Just Like That: why it's the right time to end the cursed spin-off
And just like that, it was over. Friday's announcement by the showrunner Michael Patrick King that the third series of And Just Like That would be its last was met with little surprise and I suspect some relief. Following a forthcoming two-part finale, Carrie Bradshaw will hang up her Manolos for good – and not a moment too soon. If a theme could be pulled from the scrambled threads of the third season of the Sex and the City reboot, it is, I think, the question of appearance versus reality. Early on in the series, rattled by the discovery of a rat infestation in her meadowy garden, Carrie seeks comfort from Aidan, the man she's technically in a relationship with but due to a muddled and implausible arrangement, can't actually be with for five years. Carrie thought her garden was perfect, she says, 'but I just wasn't looking underneath'. After three seasons of And Just Like That the answer to what lies beneath is, I fear, nothing. Take the shoes – in a frankly criminal throwback to one of the best plotlines of the original show, Carrie namechecks a superior earlier episode as she complains about her curmudgeonly downstairs neighbour asking her to remove her stilettos in the house. In A Woman's Right to Shoes, Carrie's stolen Manolo Blahniks stood for, in no particular order, the gulf that can open between friends at different life stages, the way marriage and motherhood are celebrated when the milestones of an independent life are not, attention inequity in friendships, and a woman's right to spend her money however the hell she chooses. In Under the Table, Carrie's shoes signify … that she has a crush. That's not to say And Just Like That hasn't had its moments of insight – they just tend to be immediately binned in favour of something silly. Despite episodes averaging 40 minutes in length, this season has been the trimmest so far, with excisions both necessary (Che Diaz) and unexplained (Nya) giving the remaining characters room to breathe. Seema learns that the key to romance is not pretending to be someone else, but letting go of the desire to be seen in a certain way. Lisa flounders in her attempt to balance work and family life. Charlotte, previously troubled by such challenges as the cancellation of her dog, finally gets a storyline worthy of her default mode of hysteria when Harry is diagnosed with prostate cancer. Charlotte and Lisa's Park Avenue-set struggles with family life have some meat to them, but are bedevilled by every interaction with their children seeming to have come straight out of a toothpaste advertisement, or hell. See: Charlotte freaking out about not being able to work the party circuit to sell art as her smug children talk about veganism and polyamory, or the Todd Wexley family's cringe banter and Lisa's dismissive comments that her husband should start Ozempic. At times like these the show feels like a charmless sitcom about the super-rich. In Sex and the City, the weekends in the Hamptons were just the backdrop to more resonant storytelling – in And Just Like That, sometimes the setting is the story. In one scene, Charlotte begins to spiral at Tiffany's, wondering if life is as fragile as the glass cabinets around her – but what might have been a serious meditation on midlife and mortality morphs into an unfunny joke about which society events Bitsy von Muffling is and isn't invited to. Sometimes these vignettes verge on outright cruelty – after Lisa's nemesis is marked as a gauche interloper by her Michael Kors handbag (wrong kind of designer, honey), it's a lot harder to see her mother-in-law's pronouncement that she has no time for the working class as mere satire. Meanwhile, the inexplicably homeless Miranda deflowers a nun, becomes a meme and gains a girlfriend, who, in lieu of a personality, possesses two Italian greyhounds and vile British colleagues apparently scooped straight from the cutting room floor of Too Much. It's not until the 10th episode that we get to see Miranda, who barely resembles the beloved judgmental ice queen of Sex and the City, do the first Miranda-y thing of the entire series so far, when she stalks the woman her son got pregnant. The one bright spot of the season has been its treatment of Carrie's faltering relationship with Aidan. A standout episode in which she visits him in Virginia sees a diminished Carrie, too afraid to ask for what she wants, settling for the smallest thing he can offer her – a spot in the guesthouse. Carrie switches her magenta Vivienne Westwood for a 'sister wives' prairie dress, to attempt the role of cool country stepmum. But the performance of a happy blended family falls to pieces in a rare decent domestic scene, in which resentment and alienation explode into a conflict that ends with a broken window and a return to reality. The relationship eventually crumbles when Carrie realises that no matter how she changes for Aidan – selling her apartment, not being a brat in the countryside (remember Suffern?) – he cannot move past her previous infidelity. This, to me, is the point of returning to a story decades later: to show how people change, and how they don't. How the cracks in a relationship can run so deep that even the layering sediment of time can't fill them in, but only hide them. When Carrie finally ended it, I felt a tug of genuine emotion that can only come from having spent so much time with these characters. A lot has been made this season of the idea of the hate-watch, especially given Miranda's obsession with a Love Island-style show called Bi Bingo. 'I finally discovered the joy of hate-watching,' she says, in what I assume is meant to be a winning nod at self-awareness by the showrunners. The thing is, I don't believe that's what those of us who loved Sex and the City (for who else would bother watching And Just Like That through three unexceptional seasons?) were doing. I'd describe it as something closer to hope-watching. We wanted to see the characters we loved, women once so convincingly and lovingly drawn, being flirty, frivolous and fabulously dressed in New York City. But more than that, we held out hope that something substantial might still remain beneath the sparkle. In two episodes' time we'll finally know the answer – and if we're disappointed again, at least it'll be for the last time.
Extra.ie
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Extra.ie
WATCH: 'It's all happening' at the Galway Races as designer shoes get caught in storm drain
RTÉ correspondent Teresa Mannion has summed up the week that is the Galway Races, as the racing festival reaches Ladies Day. The summer festival returned earlier this week, with the highlight of the week being Ladies Day — which will see horse racing and fashion as the two main items on the menu. And while racegoers will be dressed to the nines for the occasion, sometimes items go missing due to punters being *ahem* a bit uninhibited — with RTÉ's Teresa Mannion, who's a Galwegian, sharing a hilarious video of a high heel getting caught in a storm drain. Teresa gave an impromptu interview to the woman, who was trying to pull the heel out of the drain, with her tagging the designers Manolo Blahnik — whose heels fetch prices of around €600. 'A trapped designer heel, recycled hat, former Ladies Day winner turned judge,' Teresa wrote. 'It's all happening at the Galway Races. Winners to be announced later this afternoon.' Incredibly, this isn't the first time that such designer shoes were discarded in the streets of Galway, as back in 2023 Teresa spoke to security at the festival; who said that they found a pair of Manolo Blahnik stilettos in the bin. The Galway Races returned this week, with Ladies Day being a highlight of the festival. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile 'Security staff at Ballybrit were bemused to find a pair of designer shoes worth 660 euros dumped in a bin!' Teresa tweeted. 'Even a pair of #ManoloBlahniks couldn't sustain a lady at the #GalwayRaces.' People were left in stitches at the dumping of the shoes — which, according to racecourse security, were left after a woman gave them to her partner, who then put them in the bin as she continued barefoot. 'The boom is back (for a select few only) hope the ladies kept them tbh [to be honest],' one person tweeted, while another joked 'Carrie Bradshaw would never' — a nod to the fact that a blue version of the suede stiletto were made famous by Sarah Jessica Parker's character in Sex and the City. The pumps are made by Spanish designer Manolo Blahnik, and were made famous by Ms Carrie Bradshaw — who made a throwback to her blue pumps in a teaser for And Just Like That. The Galway Races continue in Ballybrit.
Daily Mail
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The REAL damage you are doing if you walk around your home with shoes on like Carrie Bradshaw
In a recent episode of And Just Like That, Carrie Bradshaw found herself at the center of a hotly debated controversy: do shoes belong indoors? Carrie's introduction to the issue came when the downstairs neighbor at her Gramercy Park apartment in New York complained about the noise of her infamous Manolo Blahniks on the hardwood floor. But courtesy for neighbors aside, a large subsect of people would criticize Carrie's shoes in the home for an entirely different reason. It's a germaphobe's nightmare. Even Carrie's friend Charlotte York pointed out that going barefoot in the home, or at least wearing house slippers, is far more sanitary. But there's no reason to take a fictional character's word for it, doctors and cleaning experts agree that a no-shoe household is the best way to go. According to Brandon Pleshek, an internet personality, janitor, and self-proclaimed 'clean freak', Carrie's neighbor might just be right, for all of the wrong reasons. He told Daily Mail: 'Wearing shoes inside your home can track in a surprising amount of dirt, bacteria, and outdoor grime. 'Everything from pesticides to E. coli has been found on the soles of shoes.' Especially if you're walking on the streets of Manhattan like Carrie Bradshaw herself, dirt and germ build up can settle on your floors and expose you to all manner of illnesses. According to Cleveland Clinic, most shoes have millions of bacteria on them. If they are worn inside, that bacteria can live on your floors for days. Common shoe germs can cause diarrhea, colitis, and even life-threatening infections. Pleshek recommended that guests take their shoes off too. In another famous episode of Sex and the City, Carrie was forced to take her shoes off at a friend's house where someone else then walked away with her $500 footwear. But, that may just be a risk worth taking from a cleanliness standpoint. 'Asking guests to remove their shoes helps keep floors cleaner, especially carpets and rugs that trap dirt and allergens,' Pleshek said. 'Most people are understanding once they know it's about keeping your space clean.' Experts say that dirty shoes track in more than just bacteria. Lead is commonly found on the soles. The heavy metal can affect the brain, nerves, and vital organs, especially in babies and young children. Lead can be found in old buildings with lead based paint. The paint slowly chips off overtime and becomes dust. Dr. Daniel Sullivan, an internal medicine physician, said: 'You can walk through this dust without knowing it and bring it into your house on your shoes. 'The dust can easily make its way into a child's mouth if they're playing on the floor.' Seasonal allergens like grass and pollen can be tracked in on shoes as well. If you notice your allergy symptoms are especially bad despite tactics to fight them, that could be why. If you, like Carrie Bradshaw, must take shoes into your home, Pleshek said that a doormat is a great 'first line of defense'. 'Having one outside and another inside can help cut down on how much dirt and debris makes it through the door,' he said. 'Just make sure they're large enough to actually wipe your feet on and clean them regularly so they don't end up doing more harm than good.' Having a designated pair of house slippers or shoes is also a good option for maintaining cleanliness indoors. Pleshek said they prevent wear and tear on hardwood floors and protect your feet. While keeping outdoor shoes off outside is the best way to maintain a clean environment, unfortunately for Carrie's neighbor there is an argument to be made for sporting footwear in the house. According to Time, going barefoot on hard floors can be bad for your feet. Unlike carpet, they don't allow for any padding or shock absorption. That kind of repetitive pressure on the soles can lead to serious health issues. Metatarsalgia, for example, is inflammation that causes pain on the bottom of the foot, and can even migrate to the hips, knees, and back. There's also an increased risk of stubbing, scraping, or tripping in your home while barefoot which if done repeatedly can take a toll. According to podiatric surgeon Dr. Nicole Brouyette, not just any Manolos, Jimmy Choos, or Louboutins will do for indoor footwear. Not only that, but stilettoes like Carrie's can cause severe damage to hardwood floors. It can create dents, scuffs, and scratches and even cause damage to the heels themselves. Unlike Carrie's famous high heels, shoes worn in the house should be sturdy and supportive with a spacious fit. Designating house shoes and outdoor shoes can be a simple way to get the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, Carrie didn't see it that way when her neighbor passive-aggressively gifted her a pair of slippers, but she did agree to put down some rugs.
Edmonton Journal
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Edmonton Journal
Cocktail pairings for your favourite '90s shows
Sex and the City This one's a no-brainer. Our favourite New York City quartet is famous for their love of cosmopolitans. This blend of vodka, cranberry juice, Cointreau and a splash of lime practically demands you buy some Manolo Blahniks to go with it. At least that's what you can tell your bank account.
