The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 221 — The A Ma Maniére break-in shouldn't surprise you

There's so much money in sneakers anything is possible now.

May 06, 2022

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Alright, let’s jump in.

Those A Ma Maniére AJ2s are a lick to somebody

A Ma Maniére raised the sneaker community’s collective brow on Thursday when they announced they were pushing back the release date for their Jordan 2’s. This is obviously a highly anticipated release with lots of folks trying to get their hands on these joints. You don’t just delay this for no reason — something changed.

We found out what: Someone actually broke into A Ma Maniére’s Atlanta boutique with a sledge hammer to get in, per Steve Gehlbach of WSB-TV.

The details:

The burglars broke through through wall to get in. The Atlanta Police Department responded to the alarm but the suspect escaped.
A Ma Maniére’s security responded as well and arrived on the scene but shot the officer after mistaking them for the suspect.

This situation obviously rendered the Atlanta store useless for the time being. So, naturally, the process had to be delayed. The raffle was pushed back to the 8th instead of ending on Thursday. In the meantime, A Ma Maniére allowed in-store entry folks to confirm their visits via e-mail.

But still, this just doesn’t sit well with me. This could’ve ended extremely badly. Think about the Shoe Palace shooting last year in LA or the countless other situations like it. This didn’t end like that, but it could’ve.

Between the lines: This is sad. But it also shouldn’t shock anyone. Why? Because sneakers are money now. Straight up.

People are not interested in these Jordan 2s as much as they are the money that comes with these Jordan 2s. One pair nets you a minimum $300 sale.
You take multiple pairs and you’ve really hit a lick. These burgulars knew that. That’s why this happened.

The scary part is that’s not changing. Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t just a bubble that will burst. At least not in the near future. The monetary value of sneakers will only continue to rise as it continues to flow into the mainstream.

The big picture: Sneakers are assets now whether we like it or not. We should start thinking about them that way and treating them more like it.

That means being less shocked when something like this happens. Would you be surprised if it were art or gold instead of Jordan 2s? Probably not. Think of these shoes in that way.
These are assets. And, luckily for A Ma Maniére, they had their asset protected. Thankfully, no one was (fatally) hurt in the process.

If shoes are going to carry this sort of value then we should really start discussing the best way to secure and insure them. All of us. Consumers, brands, retailers, everyone on down.

Then maybe we’ll see less of this happening moving forward.

Enough with the MSCHF. Plz

brown and black lace up shoe — *Photo by Tamas Pap on Unsplash*

I won’t lie. I hope that the Wavy Baby is the end of this MSCHF getting purposely sued schtick. I’m tired.

What’s happening: As we all predicted, Vans took the art collective to court over their Wavy Baby collaboration with Tyga. It looks like a distorted riff on the Old Skool. And, again, as predicted, Vans now has a temporary restraining order against them, Complex’s Brendan Dunne reports.

The court granted Vans a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction stopping MSCHF in its tracks on Wavy Baby sales.
Not only are they not allowed to fulfill anymore Wavy Baby orders, but they also have to cancel any current orders and put the money made from them in an escrow account for refunds if Vans wins ultimately wins the case.

We’ve seen this story already with them. It’s thesame as the Lil Nas X shoe which is the same as the racer jerseys and hats which is the same as…you get the point. It’s all according to the plan for MSCHF.

Create a thing, blur lines with thing, get sued, call out the company and its industry, move on to next thing.

Between the lines: They do it to show how everything in this hype culture we live in is lacking creativity and innovation. Especially sneaker culture. And that’s absolutely true.

But, also: This back and forth dance is sort of annoying at this point. We know how it ends. Nothing changes. Nothing from this is moving the conversation forward.

And if that’s the point of all this? Well, let’s just say something else needs to be done.

Nike finally got the FlyEase GO right

Last year we rightfully complained about Nike’s botched FlyEase Go drop.

This was such an important shoe as Nike’s first handsfree sneaker that served a big function for folks with disabilities. I wrote about that here.
But the initial release was also extremely limited. And anytime there’s a limited release for a sneaker with a wide-ranging audience, resellers are going to pounce. And that’s exactly what they did.

This year, though? Nike got it right.

What happened: The FlyEase Go released on Monday with multiple pairs in multiple colors available in adult size runs. Anyone who wanted a pair could get one.

In fact, there are still lots of sizes still available in a few colors that are left.

This felt great — especially when you consider the shoe’s functional purpose. A lot of folks who needed this shoe actually got them.

This wasn’t a perfect process: It took a while for this to actually happen and the initial drop was still awful. But just as we said with the Kobe’s earlier this week: Patience and care wins above all. That’s what we saw exercised here. There wasn’t another rushed drop or limited release of these. Pairs were in abundance.

It took a year, but in the end we won. And that’s feels pretty good to say.

Ja getting buckets in fakes???

Ja Morant might be everyone’s favorite player in the NBA right now. That dude is spectacular.

But he also…might be wearing fake Kobes? Maybe? The eagle eyed sneaker community on Reddit spotted some…let’s call them…discrepencies on his Kobe 4 Preludes from game 2 vs. the Warriors.