Budget babies like me are sometimes reduced to wistful tears over a pair of shoes in Vogue so beautiful in design and so sublime in quality that the price tag manages to reach the quadruple digits. (Fine, I've never actually been reduced to tears but I'm painting a picture here.) Stunning, yes! But you can't have them, peasant!

Thank the fashion gods for knock-offs.

Case in point. Marc Jacobs platform mary janes - stylin', semi-practical with the comfortable wedge, and oh-so-cute. $320 certainly doesn't hit the upper registers of fashion price tags, but it's still equal to a month of groceries. (Best diet tip ever? Be poor.)



Lovely, yes? Now check these babies out:




Mighty similar. Main difference? About $220. Quality will probably be lower, but you also get to eat this month. Eating = good. For the Marc Jacobs look at decidedly un-MJ prices, check out the Jeffrey Campbell platform mary janes for $89. I got my pair here in patent leather for only $72.

Wear with dresses, wear with jeans - I guarantee you'll get compliments. You can even walk the city for hours without being reduced to hobbling into the nearest drugstore for band-aids. And 99 percent of the people you pass will have no idea which pair you're wearing.

Labels: bait and switch, shoes