Outside of the occasional Steve Madden knockoff of a particular design, the Balenciaga aesthetic can be difficult to find in reasonably priced footwear. Nicolas Ghesquiere always ensures that the brand’s footwear in particular is on the cutting edge of futuristic fashion, and trying to pull off that look with lesser materials and manufacturing practices can be a daunting task, to say the least. Since the audience for such a specific look is objectively much smaller than that of yet another suede platform pump, we don’t see all that much neo-Balenciaga.

All of that just makes the L.A.M.B. Charon Platform Sandals even better, of course.

All of this is said, of course, under the assumption that a mass brand co-opting the aesthetic of a luxury label is a good thing, which I think it is in this case. Balenciaga’s shoes are often brilliant and almost always occupy a somewhat unique spot on the footwear marketplace, and the democratization of such a sleek, well-conceived look is a net win for the style world as a whole. These shoes are slick, neutral and much less expensive than your average pair of Balenciaga heels, so I can only think of this as a very shrewd move by L.A.M.B.’s designers. Buy through ShopBop for $295.