Good morning, folks! Happy Monday! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear! Thanks so much for being here with me today. Can y’all believe y’all let me get 100 of these things off? LMAO love you.
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Let’s get down to business.
Crocs has figured the game out
(Photo by Mihály Köles on Unsplash)
Look up polarizing in the dictionary. Crocs are right there. You either love them or you want to punt them into the sun. I fall into the latter — they’re awful.
Yet, the run they’ve had over the last two years or so has been absolutely undeniable. They’ve gone from a “ah, damn, let me take the trash out” clog to a legitimate fashion piece and a canvas for high profile collaborations.
Bad Bunny’s Crocs collab illustrated that very clearly last week. The Puerto Rican trap star’s shoes were gone in literal minutes. They released at 12 noon Eastern Time. By 12:16, they were sold out. Fans were pissed they couldn’t get their hands on them. Pissed! Over Crocs.
They retailed for $60. By the time they hit StockX, that price quintupled to $300. Yes, quintupled.
It’s deflated a bit since, but they’re still more than $100 over retail on average.
This Bad Bunny drop is indicative of Crocs’ blow up, but it isn’t necessarily new or unexpected. This is part of the plan for Crocs as a brand.
They’re strategically building a buzz with their core Gen Z consumer base with names they know. It started with Post Malone back in 2018. It’s evolved into names like Bad Bunny, K-Pop sensations BTS and TXT and, soon, Justin Bieber.
That has resulted in steady growth for Crocs as a brand — growth that investors have loved so far in 2020 when the footwear industry is struggling across the board. Once Bieber officially drops, expect another jump.
Keeping it a buck, though. These celebrities aren’t the only reason Crocs works. They’re the biggest reason, but at the core of everything there’s something else at work here.
As much as I hate Crocs, this is clearly a product that people love. It’s fun. It’s comfortable.
They’re also versatile — you can wear them in house or outside. They’re also extremely inclusive to their consumers and have brilliantly leveraged user generated content over the years. It just works.
I’ll never jump on the bandwagon. I refuse, y’all. But I can easily see why y’all are there. And I respect it.
It just goes to show that if you build a quality product and you keep your consumer base in mind, things normally work out for the best. Lots of brands in footwear should be taking note.
Be Better, Yeezy
(Photo by Kyle Brinker on Unsplash)
Naming things well is important for branding. Having the right people to name those things is harder and even more important.
Yeezy failed at both of those. The brand renamed its latest 350 v2 over what they’re calling a “diversity and inclusion concern,” Complex reports.
The Yeezy 350 v2 “Carbon” had it’s release delayed to Oct. 2 after being slated for a mid-September launch because of its offensive name.
It was originally named “Asriel,” one of the four archangels of Islam. This is cultural appropriation and is offensive to people of the Islamic faith.
The worst part is it’s just one of many scheduled Yeezy sneakers named in this fashion. Before this, they released the “Israfil” colorway in August — named after Islam’s archangel of music. There were more coming down the line, too, throughout the year.
This just goes to show you what happens when you half-ass do diversity and inclusion. It’s fine that they caught this, but this shouldn’t have actually happened at all. It’s a huge blunder. One that shouldn’t happen if you’re checking all of your DnI boxes right.
What’s most disappointing is that this is at a company run by a Black man in Kanye West. If anyone should know better, it’s him. Yet, here we are.
P.S…Don’t be the one looking for the “OG” Asriel label. It won’t resell for more — those boxes are still widely available in the U.S. Besides, that’s just clown behavior.
Another Off-White runner is on the way
We got a good look at the upcoming Off-White Air Zoom Tempo NEXT% that are set to come this fall and they look pretty dope — especially in this Paranorman sort of colorway.
This joint looks like a follow up to last year’s Off-White VaporFly that didn’t do so well for an Off-White release — they sat on the SNKRS app for weeks.
This is an odd shoe to give the Off-White stamp to.
It’s a clear performance sneaker. Off-White doesn’t normally dabble in performance, though it does have a solid history with the Zoom Fly line.
This also isn’t necessarily the most popular model as a runner, either. The AlphaFly Next% is far more popular, for example.
Either way, this joint looks good. We’ll see how people react to it. For $260? I’m not feeling too good about it. But we’ll see.
Sue Bird makes basketball shoes interesting
I’ve talked at length here about how most basketball performance shoes these days are just bleh. But when Sue Bird gets a hold of them? Fam. She turns everything into a blowtorch.
Look at this Kyrie 6 PE she wore for warm-ups on Friday before game 1 of the WNBA Finals. She smokes these, man.
If she can make the Kyrie 6 interesting, she can make anything interesting. Please, Nike, give the woman a signature shoe.
What’s droppin?
Asics Gel-Lyte III OG — Tuesday, October 6
Air Jordan 5 “Pink Foam” (GS run) — Friday, October 9
Aimé Leon Dore x New Balance P550 — Friday, October 9
Yeezy Quantum “Teal Blue” — Saturday, October 10
Air Jordan 4 “PSG” — Saturday, October 10
Thanks y’all again for being here with me today! I do not take it for granted that y’all still open these with the same excitement that you did for day 1. It’s amazing. I appreciate every single one of you.
Holla at y’all on Wednesday! KYW thread is back on Wednesday morning. Don’t miss it!
Love you. Thank you. Peace and love. Be easy. Be well. Be kind.
Signing off.
—Sykes 💯
Sue Bird is the GOAT on and off the court. I'm not ever wearing Crocs either!
The WNBA is steadily increasing in popularity as are it's stars, I'm amazed that none of them have signature shoes yet. There are *millions* of young women and girls playing youth bball on top of the HS and college athletes. This is a huge blind spot by the industry.