Zara Spring Knocks Off The Best Of Stella, Balmain, Blumarine, and Wu For You

Enjoy the spectacle of Stella McCartney and Christophe Decarnin‘s design chops, but lack the financial wherewithal to fund a $3,000 dress? Zara, your friendly Spanish high street store, is here to help.

Scanning Zara’s spring catalog — ably modeled by the incomparable Lara Stone against a minimalist all-white backdrop — reminded me just a little too strongly at times of offerings from all kinds of different designers’ collections. But most notably, the fast fashion chain’s design team is plundering Stella McCartney’s and Balmain’s silhouettes this season.

Which, frankly, is pretty much what Zara does, and at prices that are relatively consumer-friendly, which deserves props. At least they can be said to stay on trend while keeping to the right side of the Forever 21 conception of intellectual property. But fair’s fair, and where Zara’s reinterpretation gets a little literal, I’ve provided some memory aids from the runways.

Unfortunately, the Flickr set got scrambled in its transfer to this website in some kind of grand html-based snafu — which kind of spoils the effect of clicking through the slideshow and seeing Zara offering, runway original, Zara offering, runway original, etc. I trust you can piece it together even if it’s slightly out of order.

Balmain Spring/Summer 09 [Style.com]
Blumarine Spring/Summer 09 [Style.com]
Stella McCartney Spring/Summer 09 [Style.com]
Jason Wu Spring/Summer 09 [Style.com]
Zara Spring 09 Women’s Collection [Zara]