Missed out on THOSE Zara sandals from last season? Don’t worry: not only has the brand released a re-vamped version for this year, it looks like New Look have taken a huge dollop of “inspiration” from the originals to create a version of their own.
The problem here, however, is that this isn’t exactly a “new” look at all, is it? (boom boom!) A lot of the time when two high street brands release what appears to be the same shoe, it’s because it actually IS the same shoe, in that it was created by the same designer, made in the same factory, and simply given a different brand name depending on which stores will be selling it.
In this case, however, you can see from the photos that these shoes aren’t EXACTLY the same. The colours on the New Look version are bolder, the buckle is orange rather than metal, the cut is slightly different, and while it’s hard to gauge quality from a photo, it looks to me like the New Look version has a velour-effect upper, while the Zara one was faux-suede, if memory serves. This does seem to be a case of “inspiration” then, with New Look presumably trying to capitalise on the success of these shoes last year.
Will it work for them, though? If you’ve spent the past few months searching eBay for these shoes, then I guess it just might. Personally, I prefer the updated version from Zara themselves, but if you’d rather stick to the original design, albeit not from the original brand, New Look’s version is £24.99, and you can find them here.
I think I prefer the Zara version too but I’m not really sold on either.