Has Giuseppe Zanotti taken inspiration for his new $650 heels from a simple pair of stripper shoes? Is the mule craze out of control? Aren’t all sky-high heels just bedroom shoes in disguise? Who really knows?
What I do know is that Zanotti’s black patent-leather 5 inch mules do remind me awfully of the Domina stilettos from the stripper shoe retailing behemoth Pleaser.
The Pleasers (pictured above) are higher (the “approximately” 5 inch is actually closer to a 6 inch heel) but the micro-peep-toe mules otherwise do look to be cut rather similarly.
How many different ways can you really do a black stiletto mule I suppose?
The Zanotti version retailed from the designer’s site for $650 but are now sold out. The Pleaser version cost around one tenth of that and is branded under its Devious label.
Perhaps most interesting is that this is not a co-incidence – or, if it is, it is one of two co-incidences. Because only a couple of months later we spied another Zanotti / Pleaser similarity – this time with heeled zipper sandals.