vmiaptetr said:
Is the hype period for these before my time? I didn't really get into the shoe game until about a year and a half ago.
It's before most people's time unless you've been following shoes for a while. They broke in the early 2000s as a Japanese homage and a luxury riff on AF1s. Back then, you could only get them in Japan, there weren't many pairs, etc. They rebounded pretty hard right before the pandemic (like 2018ish I think) when AF1s were the rage again, but the hypebeast culture was driving that and wearing them solely for status.
The problem with the purely hypebeast brands is that even if you like the style, you're either lumped in with them while it's happening or you're seen as a "biter" on the outside just trying to grab stuff that was too expensive to fit in, and the hype culture moves on to something else. Either way, it's pretty lame, and that sucks if you actually happen to like the styling. It's like high school for folks in their 20s trying to rent coolness.
And if you're old (i.e., over 25), then you just look out of touch.
It'll happen to all the current ones, too, though it's more about clothes right now than shoes. Fear of God Essential, Gallery Dept., etc. All of those will soon be on the shelves of your closest Nordstrom Rack, replacing True Religion and 7 Mankind, who replaced the Von Dutch and Ed Hardy before that. But hey, when I was in high school, kids were chasing Stussy, and that's back in a big way, so who knows.
But yeah, the hype period for those bad boys is long gone. Meanwhile, the shoe BAPE copied remains eternally cool.
