Footwear Trend Alert: Pay Hundreds of Dollars for Shoes That Look Used
LatestThese sneakers are filthy, frayed, rumpled, and available at Barneys for $565. Welcome to the new luxury shoe market.
Perhaps the appeal is that rich people want to attain a certain dressed-down, more-casual-than-casual look but are simply too rich to actually get dirty or have to walk enough to break in a single pair of shoes, especially when they have so many other shoes to wear. So now designers are apparently going after that very specific demographic, attaching hefty price tags so that everyone knows that the shoes are supposed to look smelly and used.
Converse, which are typically in the $30 to $40 range, are now producing limited edition “distressed” sneakers for about $310.
You can also get dirty, stained knock-off Vans slip-ons for $521.