In 1972 British dress designer Ossie Clark requested that Manolo Blahnik , then a fledgling shoe designer (who was encouraged to pursue the craft by Vogue editor Diana Vreeland), produce a capsule collection to accessorize dresses that would appear in his seasonal runway presentation. For Blahnik it was a watershed moment. British Vogue featured his work on the magazine’s pages. Soon stylish young women with whom he was friendly were wearing his shoes, and in 1974 Blahnik posed with model Angelica Huston for the cover of British Vogue, becoming the first man to appear on the magazine’s cover. He built a retail client base at a funky London boutique, Zapata, on Old Church Street. He later acquired the premises and set up his own independent shoe boutique, which he operated with his sister, Evangeline, with whom he continued to work closely. By 1979 Blahnik had opened another manolo blahnik shoes boutique on Madison Avenue in New York City. In 1991 he added a third shop, in Hong Kong.