The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 165 — The exclusive bird gets the worm. That's how it goes, right?
EXCLUSIVE ACCESS?!?!? 🙃
GOOD MORNING, FAMILY! The Kicks You Wear is back! WOW. It’s been so long.
I am thrilled to let you all know I have successfully moved into my new spot. No, I am not unpacked. This is actually my first newsletter being published from my new desk and it feels pretty cool. But I did miss y’all — terribly. And so much happened while we were away. So let’s get it crackin’.
Y’all bout ready?
At the mercy of Exclusive Access
(Photo by Korie Cull on Unsplash)
It is with a heavy heart I inform you that, if you’re looking for a pair of “Dear Summer” Off-White Dunks, you are at the mercy of the SNKRS app.
The Dunks will only be available via Exclusive Access. Nike’s Lucian Dickson announced it on a SNKRS Live session (that I’m sure not a single Android user out there saw) last week. This is an attempt to make the release fair for “hardcore fans” of Off-White.
The details:
Access for the Dunks begins on Monday, August 9. It’ll be spread out over a few days.
Folks who have interacted with Off-White Dunk content on SNKRS are the ones who will supposedly gain early access. Turn on push notifications.
Access is not guaranteed. If you get it, your size isn’t guaranteed either. You also won’t know what “lot” or number of the 50 Dunks you’ll get.
So, in short, interact with Nike’s Off-White content in the coming days and cross your fingers. The rest is a crapshoot.
People are frustrated with this and I get it. There are folks who’ve never gotten exclusive access on anything on the app and now they’re crossing their fingers for an Off-White drop. That’s absolute madness.
You can’t ask people to trust this system. They have no reason to. It's just the only avenue to these particular kicks, so they tolerate it. That’s the nature of the game today.
It’s a fact that there will be a lot of unhappy people after this. It’s called exclusive access for a reason — everyone isn’t going to get it. And that sucks. But everyone wasn’t going to get it anyway because there aren’t enough pairs to go around.
Look on the bright side, though. At least this might be a way to weed the bots out. And if it works here, then maybe it can be applied to more releases with less hype in the future.
There’s a long game here. And if we’re not going to just make more sneakers (which, plz do that) then I’m good with this in the meantime. For now, anyway.
Now THIS is how you drop a sneaker
(via JoeFreshGoods)
JoeFreshGoods is really pushing the A Ma Manirére 3 for sneaker drop of the year.
It all started with this fantastic commercial. The subtle homage to DC’s history with New Balance is *chefs kiss*.
He hosted a pop-up in Garfield Park on the Westside of Chicago on Thursday as a follow-up. I was two seconds away from booking a flight but decided against it because I’m poor. But hundreds of folks showed up to try and buy his shoes.
The shoes still hit the resale market, of course, and is selling for thousands.
That’s a bit discouraging considering it’s the sort of thing they tried to eliminate with the pop-up. Clearly, it didn’t work.
But…that’s why I appreciate this. They tried! Everyone was never going to be happy. And I’ll likely be one of those unhappy people. But even if I never get a pair of these, it was still dope to see JFG take over and pay homage to New Balance’s Black roots in this way. I still feel like I won.
This tweet captured that perfectly.
So, nah. Everyone isn’t getting the shoes. But some things are more important, and way cooler, than just one pair of sneakers. This is one of those things.
SPECIAL DELIVERY: Diving in on Adidas’ 4D problem
Adidas’ latest Ultra 4D collab with Packer is special, man. This is one of the most beautiful shoes I’ve seen in 2021.
But…nobody seemed to want it. It took a while for this thing to sell down to even the smaller sizes.
Part of that is Packer overstocking and not caring about their shoes sitting.
The other part of it, though, feels like an Adidas issue. Particularly with 4D. It just doesn’t get folks excited the way it used to. I talked about why on this week’s episode of Special Delivery.
Adidas has to find a better way to sell 4D. Otherwise, this will continue to be a problem. And that’s a shame because it’s really freaking good.
Normalize wearing your kicks…maybe not this hard tho
Listen. I’m an advocate for always, always, always wearing your shoes. No matter how hyped they are or how much they cost you. That’s what sneakers are for!
And this tweet captures that perfectly.
Those would sell for a cool grand on almost any aftermarket — probably more if we’re being honest. But here Peggy Gou is wearing them and creasing the hell out of them.
And while I will never advocate for creasing your shoes in this absolutely ridiculous way (that she is surely doing on purpose) I will say it’s nice to see someone actually wearing the Travis joints to wear them. I mean, at least she’s not pouring cereal in them, right?
Point is: Wear your kicks. It’s fun.
What’s droppin’ bruh
sacai x Nike Blazer Low “British Tan” — Tuesday, August 10
Nike Dunk Low “Sail Multi-Camo” — Wednesday, August 11
Fragment x Travis Scott x Nike Jordan 1 Low —Friday, August 13
Air Jordan 1 High “Pollen” — Saturday, August 14
Bad Bunny x adidas Forum Low “Core Black” — Saturday, August 14
Thank y’all so much for rocking with me! I missed this so much. Appreciate y’all. Love y’all. I’ve got some cool stuff coming on the horizon! Cannot wait to share it with you, fam. Until next time!
Peace. Love. Be cool. Be kind. We out.
-Sykes 💯