It seems that some heavy product placement of designer shoes in one of cable's most popular television shows has left the man who creates them less then pleased.

The shoes in question are super stylish, super expensive heels made by Manolo Blahnik, who I’m sure very few women had ever heard of before HBO’s “Sex And The City.” A profile on Manolo from the Design Museum reads:

“Thanks in part to 'Sex And The City,' Manolo Blahnik has become one of the handful of designers whose name is synonymous with their product. In his case it is his Christian name, because 'Manolo' is now used as slang to describe very expensive, very beautiful shoes: even by the millions of people who have never actually seen a pair of Manolo Blahniks and could not dream of spending $300 or $400 to buy them.”

But a recent column in the Observer, Nicholas Boston reported on a scene last week at the Rubin Museum of Art were Eric Boman, a photographer and friend of Blahnik, was speaking.

“'Manolo thinks—which is very unfair—he thinks it’s vulgarized his name,' said Mr. Boman, who has a boyish, fine-featured face. A listener in the audience gagged loudly. 'He says,'—here Mr. Boman traded his casual chatty tone for a comically grandiloquent one—‘I’m sure that that Miss Parker is a perfectly nice woman,’ and, he says, "I have met her, as a matter of fact"—I think she presented him with some award, you know, and she is a very nice woman, but he just thought that...'—Mr. Boman went into silent reflection for a moment—'It’s an aspect of his work that he doesn’t feel is his work?'”

On the absurdity of Blahnik’s supposed dislike of Parker’s role in the explosion in popularity of his shoes, the bloggers at Jossip wrote:

“Don't you hate when actors and actresses drag your name through the mud? And by drag your name through the mud, we mean, make you more famous than you ever dreamt you could be.”

If Blahnik is really annoyed with Parker or the television show, then I’m not really clear on why. Yeah, it's true that "Sex And the City" hammered home the luxury labels, bringing them to an audience hungry big-city fashion, but there’s a big difference between clever product placement or brand worship, and actually “vulgarizing” something. I mean, I do sympathize with the guy. If he didn’t want this shoes or his name to be on the tongue of every mall rat in Middle America, then he has a right to be disappointed. But to say that Parker and Co “vulgarized” his brand is some awfully harsh finger pointing.

I think that the producers of "Sex and The City" made it very clear that it’s characters were professional, successful, and most importantly, fashion-forward women, not some hacks who picked up their duds in Chinatown. Well, except for that one episode when Samantha has a brief fling with knock-off handbags, but that affair ended badly, and she learned her lesson. Besides, few women can afford his shoes anyway, so its not like you’ll see a herds of copy-cat women roving the sidewalks of Suburbia in Manolos anytime soon.