Shoe blog

Casadei’s Geometric Heels: Shoe Deja-Vu

I love intricate or carved heel details on shoes. So, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that I’ve been pining over Casadei’s 2010 fall line of boots & pumps with their delightfully-geometric, devilishly high, drop-dead gorgeous heels.

(Photo c/o Yoox.com, boots not currently in stock)

I mean, look at these! What’s not to love?

These are so yummy, I could squeal.

Anyway, while the boots are sold out, Endless does have some of the pumps available with the same heel design:

Casadei ’6533′ pump $690 via Endless.com

Oh, and it appears that I wasn’t alone in taking notice of these beauties.  At least two separate low-to-mid end shoe designers have brought out mimic styles that are clearly based on the above Casadei designs.

The one I ran into first was a brand I am not familiar with – Sergio Zelcer. The styles made by this company are clearly inspired by what higher-end ‘premium’ shoe designers; most of them are taking advantage of the recent ruling that red soles cannot be trademarked by any single designer or brand.

The Sergio Zelcer ‘Want’ peep toe pumps are $129.77 at Endless.com and are only available in whole sizes 7-10 in bone patent, black patent, silver pearl, and gold metallic.

The second designer is Vince Camuto; a brand that tends to have a mix of current trends and designer-inspired styles that are usually just enough different from the source inspiration to avoid being exact knock-offs.

Vince Camuto ‘Enita’ Slingback $110 at Endless.com, Shoebuy.com, Dillards, and HSN.

As you can see, the similarities to the Casadei shoes are evident.  I do like the way the sculpted heel looks in that bone color on the Vince Camuto version.  The light, neutral tones really make the geometry of the heel into a much subtler statement than we get from any of the other color interpretations of this shoe.

However, I confess that if I had a more, shall we say, ‘elastic’ budget  -  I’d have had one of the above Casedei’s in my possession long before any of these latecomers were even available.

So, what do you think?