Don’t risk heartbreak! Support the designers…

Rachel Simpson reveals all about designing stunning shoes and how counterfeits are crushing brides’ dreams…

Many years ago I was a freelance designer working for various footwear manufacturers who supplied many of the high street brands,” explains Rachel. “It was around the time many well-known clothing labels had begun to launch their own label footwear, as well as Primark opening its doors for the first time. It was all about fast fashion – who could reproduce the designer brands quickest and with the cheapest price point. Quality was out and low cost, disposable fashion reigned supreme. It was the week when three of my clients sent me the same boot from a well-known high street shop, asking me to rework it into a range of similar designs that I knew something had to change. I’d always had the long-term plan to start my own brand, and this was one of the catalysts that started turning that plan into a reality.”

Rachel Simpson the brand celebrated its seventh birthday earlier this year, something Rachel is rightly very proud of. “Our design team create shoes they love. Shoes our brides want to wear for two reasons – they’re unique and they’re comfortable,” says Rachel. “Ever since we launched in 2008 I have loved creating designs from the heart, without having to justify them through the versions that are already bestsellers in the market. None of this is meant to sound pretentious, but I do think it’s important to understand where design comes from for a lot of independent (and indeed much larger) brands. Which is why it can be so heartbreaking when those designs are copied and reproduced all in the name of chasing sales.”

Keeping copycats at bay
When someone copies a designer’s shoes, this can have a huge effect on not only the legitimate businesses, but also the hardworking designer. “People say that imitation is the highest form of flattery, and whilst that may be true it also intrudes on a highly personal place, which the producer of the counterfeit version can never truly understand,” explains Rachel. “Anyone can copy a design, no one can recreate a passion. As a company we invest huge amounts of time and money into design development. Often the creative process starts itself with the design team organically knowing where they want to go next. We’ll go on inspiration trips to vintage shops or markets, or beautiful places where we invariably fall in love with ideas and get quite animated mid-shop! These ideas are then brought back to the office where we play around with shapes, leathers and details, until these exciting ideas are developed into designs we can take to our factory and make into next season’s collection.”

Real quality won’t come cheap…

Although buying cheaper alternatives to the designs you love may seem tempting, inevitably you’ll be setting yourself up for heartache. “When you buy a counterfeit you might save money, but remember all the things you’re missing out on, all the things the designer wanted you to feel,” says Rachel. “If we fuel a world where cheap copies rule, we’ll eventually kill off the creativity until there’s no originality left. And then even the copycats will be in trouble!”

Copycat horror! The copycat shoe on the right is obviously a different colour to the original and terrible quality.