Designer Double Take

Late in the evening, when the house is quiet and the husband is immersed in his favourite gadget of the day, I like to spend some time surfing the net for all things fashiony.


Last night it was shoes.  Since coming across the little heeled desert boots at Sportsgirl, I've been scouring shoe sites to see what other feet flirtin' gems take my fancy.


Now, I'm sure none of you are surprised by the fact that almost all middle market retailers are influenced heavily by designs of the masters.  Some are merely 'influenced' by the designs whilst others are more blatant and copy designs directly.  This is fairly standard practice for both clothing and shoe retailers.  In fact most fashion retails employ people for this very purpose - to scour the globe, purchase 'sample' products that are then deconstructed in order to draft a pattern.  


Take these examples. I'm sure you can appreciate that is not by coincidence that Australian retailers happen to come up with an almost identical design to that of a well known designer.

Whether this is ethical or not is up to you to decide, but with so many designs available, we can be forgiven for not knowing if a particular shoe is a new design or has been 'influenced' by another designer - particularly as many of the high end designer shoes are not available in Australia.


Personally, if I know a design has been copied, and it is distinctive enough for people to recognise, I have to think really hard as to whether I purchase.  I have the same view of fake handbags.  If I cannot afford the real thing, then I will happily go without.


As for my little heeled desert boots, I figure that since they were influenced by these little numbers ...

... I would happily part with my cash.  (and yes, these are original desert boots from the late 70's from my *ever growing* shoe collection - woo hoo)!