The poverty fetishism (which you only get to practice if you have lots of money, of course) is just… sick. It manages to be more grotesque than Mary Antoinette and her shepherdess cosplay.
On top of which, it’s also part of another phenomenon:
You’d think.
It’s outrage over a symptom, basically. You can be as pissed as you want about the symptom, it’s not going to do anything to the disease.
The psychology of wearing $500 duct-taped sneakers is not dissimilar to those rich Oxford University students who burn money in front of the homeless.
It says;
“Please… Look at me. I’m very rich.
I’m so rich I can afford to (literally) burn my money.”
It’s a warped form of self-validation; an ego trip with a terminal lack of self-awareness.
It’s not cultural appropriation. It’s worse. It’s a gross celebration of having reached the escape velocity of having to give a f*ck about anything or anybody.
I agree that it’s gross. But it’s hardly new. Haven’t pre-distressed jeans been around forever?
From one of the ‘pissed off’ posts: “Since when is it a trend to glorify the appearance of used sneakers and poverty?”
From an article I read back in the late 80s, NY fashion designers would go outside and (for new, marketable ideas) look at what people were already wearing and how they were wearing them. That included (per the article) what some homeless people were wearing then, with that resulting in trendy layered clothing styles.
distressed clothing items have been a thing for decades now. 20+ years ago. our then-teenaged younger son had a thing for torn, faded, and pre-stained jeans from abercrombie and fitch that started in the $150s then which would be equivalent to the $250s now. for people who have more money than they really need i suppose that’s one way for them to unload it. not that we were as happy about it as our son was.
I have a pair of sandals whose rubber soles are coming off in big chunks. Whenever I’m in a cafe, there’s always an apologetic barrista trying to sweep around my feet thinking it is food from a previous patron. For a limited time, and only to BoingBoing readers, $375.
Goes well with ripped jeans.
you want trashed sneakers?
Buy barefoot running shoes, and hike the trails.
Someone should tell them that burning currency is effectively a gift to the Treasury. A voluntary tax payment.
I’ll admit it; I own a pair of GG shoes, but not the pre-distressed ones. I have to say that I don’t think these are some sort of poverty fetishization or a conscious slight on the poor. More and more people live and work in ways that don’t involve manual labor or activities that get you and your clothes dirty, and people long for the authenticity of their clothes and shoes really being “used” and truly broken in. GG shoes are very, very well made, and I doubt that the tape is actually holding them together.
Being someone who’s been through the whole Terry Pratchett trope of ‘wearing stupidly worn-thin soled footware’ IRL due to long-term poverty, This annoys me greatly more than i can put into words… **
**Things are better now, but it’s taken a full year of reasonable wages to get just things back on track. I can now put myself at a state where i’m up to date, and now saving, something unthinkable just two years ago…
I’ve never lacked in empathy for the poor but that stint reinforced it to the core…
The “worn out look” is hardly new, and has been used for all kinds of fashion, including clothing, interior design (i.e. shabby chique), architecture, and even things like cars.
The point isn’t to emulate the poor or poverty, but to emulate something old with “character”. With clothing this conveys something that is beloved and treasured by the wearer, even if it has seen better days.
For example “distressed” t-shirt designs. Though they never look as cool as actually worn and weathered clothing. Like my ~20 year old KMFDM shirts look pretty cool all cracked and stuff.
You may have your own clothing that has seen better days. Hats with the metal stiffener in the rim broken, a leather jacket cracked and discolored, a coat with a torn pocket or accumulated dirt. Maybe your spouse has begged you to throw out that shirt full of holes. But something about these things makes you keep using them, even if you could afford to replace them.
So per the examples above, this sort of thing isn’t really a “mockery of poverty”. It’s just trying to manufacture a feeling.
Paying $500 for shoes that look brand new is as retarded as spending $500 on shoes that look destressed (with the exception of something bespoke, perhaps).
This is one example of many why it’s always nouveau riche idiots (and not quiet and discreet old money) who precipitate the revolutions that put them in the tumbrils and cause misery for everyone else. They may think they’re just spending a ridiculous amount of money to look like working-class or poor people, but the latter take it as mockery when they find out.
“Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.” – Daniel Handler
unhappy for the people formerly on the inside anyway
For just about everyone except the new insiders when the revolution involves overthrowing smug and clueless ultra-wealthy people.
This reminds me of a thing that used to be A Thing just a few short years ago: taking expensive high-end bikes and converting them to fixies. Seems like I read about that… here.
Great minds…
I was just imagining if I’d kept all the shoes held together with duct tape from my teenage “skater kid” days… Who would have thought that I’d be able to retire on that mountain of messed up Asics?
I would have paid $500 for another pair of shoes for Mr. Magorium…
The fact is, with 500 $ one could have a shoemaker-made custom shoe http://www.scarpetrone.it/?page_id=2 - you can’t buy them on Amazon and hou have to talk with an old man and maybe go trhhe or fout times to the shop and actually talk to the owner to have the shoes.
The proble is, they aren’t fashionabe or trendy.
