Pump Fiction: Manolo Blahnik Hangisi — Carrie Bradshaw’s Forever Shoe

by Dara Morgan

Pump Fiction: Manolo Blahnik Hangisi — Carrie Bradshaw’s Forever Shoe

23 Sept 2025

Some shoes become famous because of who designed them. Others because of who wore them. The Manolo Blahnik Hangisi managed both — and cemented its place in pop culture thanks to one fictional New Yorker with a shoe habit and a rent problem: Carrie Bradshaw.

Episode 2 of Pump Fiction takes us from Manolo’s Canary Islands childhood to the moment Mr. Big got down on one knee with a Hangisi instead of a diamond ring. Along the way, we explore how a single pair of satin pumps became shorthand for romance, obsession, and questionable financial decisions.

Here are three things you probably did not know about the Manolo Blahnik Hangisi — unless you have been hoarding them since 2008:

Its name means “Which one?” in Turkish.
It was inspired by 19th-century portraits.
It nearly outgrew its creator.

Listen now

Come for Carrie’s proposal shoe, stay for the story of a shoemaker who accidentally created a global bridal cult.

by Dara Morgan