Oh, Martinez Valero, could you be any more blatant?
Although these Valero slingbacks are more-or-less exact copies of Gucci’s tattoo slingbacks from a couple of seasons ago (right down to the colours and design of the rose “tattoo”, I don’t think anyone looking at the image above would have any difficulty telling which was the designer shoe, even if I hadn’t captioned it for you. The Gucci version is a far more elegant shape, a nicer colour, and just looks more expensive, as you would expect given that they ARE more expensive – or rather were. These are past season, so they’re no longer available unless you want to try your luck on eBay or somewhere similar. The Valero shoes, on the other hand, are available at Endless.com, amongst other places, and are $96.22.
I loved these Guccis when they came out, but, having tried on the originals, I don’t think I could stomach the copies. Could you?
This is a particularly shameless copycat, and aside from the fact that the fabric on the Paris Hilton shoes looks (and no doubt IS) much cheaper than that on the Louboutins, and the PH sole is pink rather than red, they’re more or less identical, which makes it hard to understand why Louboutin hasn’t tried to have these withdrawn, as he has with other copycat designs.
As with the Louboutin originals, these are also available in white.
Those Valentino slingbacks I showed you back in May are fast becoming one of the most copied styles of the year. Paris Hilton is just one of the “designers” (I use that word in its loosest sense, you understand) to have been “inspired” (ditto) by them, and now Forever 21 are at it, too. Their version is black rather than the red, and the bow isn’t quite so jaunty, but the style is still unmistakable. They’re certainly cheaper than their designer counterparts, though: these shoes will set you back just $19.80 – which is cheaper that ol’ Paris’s versions, too.
They don’t really get much more blatant than Steve Madden, do they?
I wrote about Alexander McQueen’s ‘Pelle’ ankle boots back in May, but I clearly wasn’t the only one to have noticed these biker-style boots, because just a few months later, along comes Mr Madden with his ‘Seryna’, which are startlingly similar, to say the least.
The McQueen boots, mind you, are $1,159, while the Madden versions are a mere $129.95, so they’re not so similar in price. I’d be struggling to point out too many other differences, though…
Just to prove that it’s not just the big-name designers who get to experience that sense of deja vu as they see their design crop up with someone else’s label attached, here’s Topshop’s ‘Samba’ cut-out peep toes, and Boohoo’s ‘Lorrie’. Spot the difference? Well, of course, there are lots of differences here, with the colour being the most obvious one, but there are a lot of similarities too - enough to make me do a double-take when I stumbled upon the second pair at Boohoo just a few hours after seeing the same design at Topshop.
Neither shoe is particularly to my taste, but if I had to pick, I’d probably go for the Topshop versions, which just look better quality to me, as well as being a nicer colour mix. If you’re judging them by price alone, though, the Boohoo shoes are a mere £25, compared to the £65 the Topshop versions will set you back.
