If you’ve been known to prefer the “distressed” look of jeans over slightly worn-in sneakers over pearly white kicks, then we might have the next product for your taste: the Superstar Taped Sneaker by Golden Goose, sold by Nordstrom’s. For $530. Seriously.
It would be one thing if the crazy-expensive shoes were clearly designer, like some nice red-soled Louboutin shoes or some Chanel flats with the interlacing Cs. But these sneakers are beyond distressed. These sneakers resemble something that was found in a trash can, and then rehabilitated in a worst-case-my-house-was-robbed-and-they-took-all-my-shoes scenario.
The description on the product at hand reads: “Crumply, hold-it-all-together tape details a distressed leather sneaker in a retro low profile with a signature sidewall star and a grungy rubber cupsole.” Grungy doesn’t even begin to describe them.
Unbelievably, the shoes have sold out — despite some outrage from Nordstrom’s customers. Worokya Duncan tweeted at the company: “This isn’t about taste. It’s about not recognizing that a store, for which I have a card, doesn’t get that poverty isn’t fashionable. I grew up ridiculously poor & could not afford the ‘finer’ things. That my embarrassment & struggle is being marketed disgusts me.”
https://twitter.com/DrDuncanHistory/status/1042919571710259200
Nordstrom’s claims that it all comes down to taste, and that some customers like what others do not. According to USA Today, “The company recently sold a pair of PRPS men’s pants, caked with fake dirt, for $425; and a pair of Topshop ‘mom jeans’ with see-through knees for $95.”
But at least these sneakers are leather…?
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