The phrase “one bad apple” spoils the bunch always struck me as needlessly lacking in nuance, but in the context of good design, it’s absolutely true. I was on board with the bicolor, grow-up sexiness of the Casadei Chain Platform Sandals until I got to the bottom. In the words of The Fug Girls, these shoes are a scroll-down fug.
That chain. I don’t even think it’s a real chain. It looks like silver-painted plastic molded on to what would have been a perfectly lovely plain black platform. But Casadei isn’t good at leaving things plain, for better or for worse, even though this detail sticks out like a sore thumb and has nought to do with anything else that’s happening with the shoe’s design.
Several of Casadei’s other Spring 2011 shoes have chain detail around the platform, although not in this odd silver color, so I guess this shoe scores a point for collection cohesion, even if it comes at the expense of the design itself. But it shouldn’t have to – collection cohesion doesn’t actually matter to anyone but those of us who write about these things, I suspect, and the shoe would have been infinitely better without the tacky faux chain. Buy through Neiman Marcus for $800.
