Is the luxury market so over-saturated that designers are trying to make their products look cheap?
That’s the only explanation we can give to the designer shoes we’ve seen lately, all made from plastic. If Marc or Sigerson wants to make a rubber rain flat, that’s fine. But why on earth would you want to wear plastic heels with your holiday cocktail dress?
Pedro Garcia’s shoes are usually made of silk or leather in movie-star approved colors. But his new pair has a giant piece of plastic stretching across the foot, and they still cost $475. And Vogue’s gift list recommends a pair of Kate Spade plastic ballet flats, priced at $275 (more than Kate’s satin ones we’ve been admiring for a month).
This would be fine if plastic shoes were more comfortable. We bought jellies a couple summers ago, and wore them once, before they were relegated to the back of the closet while our blisters healed.
Secondly, plastic’s an inexpensive material – so why do shoes constructed out of it cost as much, if not more than, their leather counterparts?
Is the luxury market so desperately driven that the only way to look expensive now is to also look cheap? Guess we have Mary Kate to thank for this one.