I got shoes. You got shoes. All Trump’s children got shoes.

It may be the Ivanka Trump, daughter of The Donald and his gloriously flamboyant ex Ivana, is every bit as self-promoting, self-absorbed, and self-aggrandizing as her old man. Which would explain why and how it got to be that one of her shoe designs is a near-clone of one from Derek Lam.

In the parallel universe of Trump World, Ivanka’s design would, of course, be: a) 100% different from that of Lam’s – look at the different strap colors; b) 1000% better than Lam’s; and c) obviously invented first, since, in Trump World, everything is bigger, better, and entirely original. Accept no substitutes!

Derek Lam thinks otherwise.

He’s slapped Ivanka’s shoe biz with a cease-and-desist note alleging that his $780 shoe was ripped off for her $150 version.

"We have seen very similar copies before but we have never seen a shoe that perfectly copied," said Jan-Hendrik Schlottmann, chief executive officer of Derek Lam. "It's such an investment to make a shoe... we had to protest this." (Source: Huffington Post, citing Women’s Wear Daily. Picture above comes from HuffPo, as well.)

Trump’s folks, of course, have a counterpoint:

A statement from the firm reads, "The Lam wedge sandals are of a popular design type that has been used by numerous manufacturers for many decades. There is nothing iconic about the appearance of the Lam sandal. The Ivanka Trump sandals prominently display the Ivanka Trump name, and there can be no confusion as to the source of the Ivanka Trump sandals." (Source: Artist Direct.)

To my naïve fashion eye, the sandals appear suspiciously alike. Then, again, so do most saddle shoes and penny loafers. So, perhaps, as the Trump-ers suggest, this concept is not “iconic” but is, rather, in the public domain.

In any case, I’d like to give Ivanka the benefit of the doubt here. It’s certainly entirely within the realm of possibility that, in the reality show called life:

• “Designer Ivanka” saw – or was even wearing, since it’s unlikely that her tootsies are shod in $150 shoes, the footwear world’s equivalent of Two Buck Chuck  – these Derek Lam-mies, pointed them out to a minion, and said “how about something like this.” Which, as the message descended through the ranks, became “replicate this.”
• That someone in her shoe firm – “Designer Ivanka” or some unnamed designer – saw these shoes somewhere, but, when they starting designing, had no recall that someone else had actually gotten their first, design-wise. You know, you start sketching something out. Now, if you’d only seen the Mona Lisa once, and that was in passing – a greeting card with a mustachioed Mona or somesuch – it’s possible, if not probable, that you could doodle yourself a near copy that was so like the lady with the mystic smile. (See, I just did the written-word equivalent, thinking for a mo’ that I had come up with the words “so like the lady with the mystic smile,” when, in fact, they were written over 60 years ago by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans* , and drilled into my beebee brain through Nat King Cole’s Mona Lisa. See how easily this ‘I thought it up’ can happen?)
• Ivanka is not really “Designer Ivanka”, she’s “Approver Ivanka”, and, when she saw the concepts for the Cadie sample, she assumed they were original, as she’d never actually seen the Derek Lam Ayami wedge.
• Ivanka is neither “Designer Ivanka” nor “Approver Ivanka”, she’s merely “Borrow My Name and Pay Me Ivanka” who has nothing whatsoever to do with what gets flogged in that name, as long as she’s compensated for its use. I suspect that this is unlikely, as I’m quite sure that Ivanka wouldn’t want her brand tarnished by something really tawdry and unstylin’, and, thus, is – at minimum – “Approver Ivanka.” (And I must say that while I appreciate that “Borrow My Name and Pay Me Ivanka” is a stlyin’ kind of gal, I have no idea why anyone would be drawn to something with her name on it. But that, as I always say, may be just me.)

Thus, there are any number of completely innocent ways in which something that sure does look like a Derk Lam sandal ends up on the rack bearing Ivanka Trump’s name.

On the other hand, she could, in fact, be a self-promoting, self-absorbed, and self-aggrandizing blowhard who’s a chip off the old bad-hair block.

Come to think of it, both could be true: she could be both 100% innocent of design rip off, and a 100% Trump-ster.

There’s noo business like shoe business…

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*Who also wrote “Que Sera, Sera”, “Silver Bells,” and the theme songs for both Bonanza and Mr. Ed.