September 4th, 2009
Fashion Fraud Squad: Steve Madden’s ‘Sernya’ Vs Alexander McQueen’s ‘Pelle’ biker style boots
Shoeperwoman caught King of the Knockoffs, Steve Madden, red-handed in the act of, er, knocking off Alexander McQueen’s ‘Pelle’ boots this week. That just sounds so wrong, doesn’t it?
Of course, “Steve Madden copies other designers” is probably the least shocking news we’ve heard this week, but we thought this was a particularly blatant attempt, even for his Steveness. The weird thing about this is that if any other designer did this, people would be at least a little bit taken aback, but when Steve Madden does it, everyone just kinda ruffles his hair (virtually, natch) and goes, “Ah, Steve, you little tyke! At it again, eh?”
For those of you who just want to know where to get them, though, let the record show that the Alexander McQueen boots are $1,159 from Zappos, while the Steve Madden versions are just slightly less expensive, at $129.95.
clearly the extra $1024 is just for the McQ name and a bit of shoe polish as the boots above look 99.9% the same…which is cute…except for that stupid peep toe
Not that I’m condoning the high price of the McQueen shoes, because I’m not, but Alexander McQueen DID also have to actually come up with the design, whereas all Steve Madden had to do was copy someone else’s design. It’s a lot easier to copy someone else than to create something from scratch, which accounts for at least a little bit of the higher price, although maybe not $1,000 worth
Am I the only one who’s surprised anyone would want to copy a silly looking boot that’s not only trying to look like a baby jacket but also has peep toes?
Pathetic.
“Uh… sir? We can’t come up with even one idea for our own shoes, so we were thinking of making an exact copy of a different shoe. Just running it by you.”