Designer HEELS for a STEAL
High St copies of luxury label shoes have never been more convincing — and they’re even comfortable too!
SOMETIMES, in stolen moments when I should be dealing with more important jobs, I confess to a little ‘fantasy footwear’ shopping.
Men have their fantasy football teams. But for me, it’s designer shoe collections that are way out of my league. For most of us, the idea of spending hundreds of pounds on a single pair of strappy, stiletto-heeled sandals is ludicrous. Designer shoes have soared in price in recent years, with four-figure price tags the norm.
A quick scan of the collections reveals Italian shoemaker Casadei’s Blade heels priced at up to £1,550. Meanwhile, there’s a pair of Gina Celestia peep-toe platforms selling at £1,200 and Charlotte Olympia’s Josephine pumps at £1,165. Various permutations of Valentino’s modern classic, the Rockstud, also cost a small fortune, with some versions fetching £1,085.
The list goes on. Thankfully, some of our favourite High Street brands are offering cashstrapped shoe lovers our own Cinderella moment — for a fraction of the price.
Of course, cloning catwalk designs and selling them cheap on the High Street has been happening for years. But the new breed of affordable versions not only take designer detailing to ever more impressive levels, but they are well-made and comfortable, too.
Shopping around the High Street for the latest must-have designer styles, we found six pairs of reasonably-priced replicas for the cost of one pair of £490 Aquazzuras.
THIS winter, I was coveting a pair of Dolce & Gabbana velvet Mary Jane heels, but at more than £600 they were way out of my reach. Imagine my joy when I found a pair of almost identical lookalikes for £119. And where did I unearth these gems? Boden. Yes, Boden.
Then there’s Valentino’s Rockstud. First introduced in 2010, with its signature ‘cage’ straps, studded with punky metal pyramids, they’ve become the cult style of the decade. At just £129, Boden’s Ashley shoe offers a much more affordable alternative. And there are lots of other High Street brands doing the same: Zara, Uterque, & Other Stories, Topshop, Mango, Dune, Asos and Office all offer remarkably good ‘same but different’ shoes, inspired by designer looks. Louboutin’s Dolly Birdy Mary Janes have a sibling nestling among the racks at Topshop, while the Grenson Clara tassled loafers met their bargain-priced doppelganger, acquired from Zara, on a friend’s teenage daughter the other day.
Sarah Day, acting course leader on the BA Footwear Design course at the London College of Fashion, says changes are afoot in the world of fashionable shoes.
‘The footwear business has changed rapidly in the past decade,’ she explains.
‘Now, many High Street brands have shoes made in the Far East, and work with trend-forecasting consultants to ensure they are creating styles that mirror the must-have designer shoes in the glossy magazines.
‘The High Street is watching big luxury brands and the likes of younger, influential British designers such as Sophia Webster and Nicholas Kirkwood,’ adds Day.
‘They are buying the shoes and taking them apart to look at the construction and the materials and finding ways to replicate that.’
Of course, if you are making 25,000 of a style, rather than 200, the economies of scale work in the consumers’ favour, but there are limitations on the finesse that’s achievable on a pair of mass-produced shoes.
It stands to reason that a pair of hand-finished, exquisitely embellished satin sandals will lose intricacies of craftsmanship when they’re rolling off a production line in their thousands.
ANNA continues: ‘When you’re creating something with a four-figure price tag, you have the scope to use bespoke heels and lasts, which are the “mould” that creates the shape of the shoe, and decorate by hand.
‘But many factories in India and Vietnam can now cope with designs that feature high levels of workmanship and some are making high-end shoes for highend brands.
‘The gap is closing and the bar is being set higher, even at the lower end of the market.
‘The Italians would be furious if I said the Chinese could make shoes to the same quality as them, but the finishing is now so much better on many High Street shoes.’
Once, buying cheap footwear came at a price: pain. Poor fitting and finishing often meant blisters and sores, but advances in manufacturing and a more demanding consumer has meant buying shoes that cost tens rather than hundreds of pounds shouldn’t compromise on comfort.