The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 226 — 😲 Yeah, Travis Scott is definitely back

A million raffle entries? That's insane.

May 23, 2022

Goooood morning, family. Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. Thank you so much for rocking with me. Hope you’ve had an awesome weekend.

Mine was pretty excellent. We had our first 95-degree day here in Maryland where I stay. You know yerboi had to hit the grill. It was a good time with good people.

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Let’s jump in.

I knew people still wanted Travis Scott shoes, but damn

unpaired white, brown, and black Air Jordan 1 shoe — *Photo by David Lezcano on Unsplash*

Last week I wondered what Travis Scott’s first post-Astrocatastrophy drop would look like. Does he still command the same hype or have people soured on him?

This week, we have an answer. Nothing has changed!

What happened: TMZ reports that Scott’s 30-minute raffle window for the Air Trainer 1 had “over 1 million entries.” A million, y’all. That’s crazy.

It’s TMZ, so I’m taking this number with a grain of salt. There were a lot of entries. But the number isn’t what mattered most — it was the reaction from the people. And that same Travis reaction was still there.

Let’s be real: I don’t feel like this is anything different than what we’d normally get from a Travis Scott release.

For example, if Travis dropped his Jordan 1 in the same manner, we’d get a similar result. If we’re being honest, there’d probably be more.

So the question is if it’s not anything different than what we’d normally see from a Travis Scott release then what’s the point of leaking this number to the media? Folks, I think the answer here is pretty obvious.

The big picture: This is a flex. This is Travis Scott turning into Stringer Bell. “I want you to put the word out there that we back up.” This is him letting us know that he’s still got it.

Just think about it.

Look at the source. This isn’t information we’d normally get — nobody was asking for this. This is a TMZ leak.
Who else but Travis Scott has anything to gain by leaking this number to TMZ? It’s a signal that none of the stuff that happened last year has knocked him back.

It’s true, honestly. People went crazy over these. It didn’t take a media tour or a legitimate apology. All he had to do was throw some money around to charity and sit quietly. When these sneakers came back, people were always going to behave like this.

And this, folks, is why Nike will never let this man go. Because, no matter what, his people are going to follow him. I’m not quite sure how to feel about it.

Foot Locker’s local strategy could bring folks back to the store

Foot Locker hosted its Q1 earnings call last week and announced they’d beat earnings expectations last quarter with earnings per share at $1.37.

But that’s not the interesting part. What caught my attention was the brand announcing its efforts to connect more with the local communities where what they’re calling their “Power” stores are located.

The details:

These are stores like the joint they opened up in Compton back at the tail end of 2020.
These locations are focused on connecting with local consumers through products and events the store holds. The activations appeal to the local audience.
Foot Locker said it’s on track to open 100 new locations, which will include 40 “community-focused” Power stores. But that’s only the beginning.

Foot Locker plans on opening 300 of these stores around the globe within 3 years. Footwear News’ Shoshy Ciment has more.

“The community or “local” focused stores connect with consumers through localized product assortments and events and activations. Foot Locker opened or converted nine of these store concepts in Q1, bringing the total of this type of store to 70. The goal is to open 300 of these across the world within three years.”

The why: It’s weird for a brand to tout opening more brick-and-mortar locations in 2022 when everything is moving online. It’s the antithesis of what present-day shopping looks like.

But these stores are doing numbers.

Franklin Bracken, Foot Locker COO, said the stores’ sales have eclipsed their sales by 10% in the last 12 months. It’s about the money.

Between the lines: This is smart. Foot Locker isn’t going to have the same assortment of Nike product that attracted people before. These Power stores are another tool to attract folks and get them in the building on top of FTL diversifying products.

So while it stinks that we’ll see less Nike in Foot Locker, this feels like a pretty fun trade-off. Can’t wait to see what this looks like in DC.

My sneaker stages of grief after the JFG cancelation

This sneaker stuff is so silly, y’all. I know sneakers are just shoes. But shoes can have you in your feelings after an L.

And after that JFG cancelation? Yeah, I was definitely in my feelings. Luckily for y’all, I vividly recounted them for content.

My 7 Stages of Sneaker Grief:

Step 1 (Seeing everyone else get cancelations): I first saw a Sole Retriever tweet saying cancelations were going out. So what’d I do? Went to check mine. We were still good. But I knew mine was coming. I just knew it.
Step 2 (my denial phase): This is the part where I thought “Hm, let me put my phone away for an hour or two. Then I won’t worry about it and it won’t happen.” So I did that and just watched TV. Plot twist: Didn’t work.
Step 3 (My cancellation): My first words were, and I quote, “you dead ass?” Yes, Michael. They indeed were. Order canceled.
Step 4 (my second denial phase): This is the part where I thought “maybe this is another IG error? There are too many cancels out here for us all to get canned like this.” It wasn’t an error. Obviously.
Step 5 (sadness): I sat in my office staring at my collection just wondering why I even do this. For what? I don’t even appreciate the shoes I have now.
Step 6 (acceptance): Wait, dummy. So what if your order got canceled? You just said it. You’ve already got MAD kicks, anyway. You didn’t even need those. You already had everything you needed right here. This is when I wrote the newsletter for Friday.
Step 7 (LOL): I just bought them on eBay. It’s me. I’m the problem.

Don’t judge me! I caught it for $60 over retail before resale prices got crazy AND there was that 15% off coupon that I know y’all saw. I had to do it. Sorry.