These Bernie Sanders-Inspired High Heels at Paris Fashion Week Won’t Come Cheap

Storied French high fashion brand Balenciaga is dipping into the realm of politically-inspired fashion once more, this time showing off high heels wrapped in t-shirt fabric that echoes Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ unsuccessful primary campaign branding.

As models paraded down the Parisian runway this weekend for the brand’s ready-to-wear fashion show, they were outfitted in pointy-toed stilettos with knotted fabric covers. Some of them, in a cheeky nod to the politician, were adorned with “Balenciaga”-branded scraps of cloth bearing the same graphics that Sanders’s campaign used.

This is not the first time designer Demna Gvasalia has felt the Bern; at his men’s show in January he took even heavier inspiration from the Sanders logo, with shirts and outerwear styled in the red, white, and blue typography that Sanders touted throughout his attempt at the White House. Vogue says those leftover t-shirts were used on the heels.

The irony, of course, is that while Balenciaga heels like the ones seen on the runway retail for upwards of $600, democratic socialism-leaning Sanders himself is notoriously low-fashion.

“I think, of my many attributes, being a fashion maven is not one of them,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper last month. Whether or not he sought this status, looks like fashion is still having its Bernie moment. For Sanders fans trying to copycat this style on the cheap, Racked notes, you’re in luck: just repurpose your old campaign t-shirt into a shoe cover.