The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 406 — Feeling the crash 📉
Trump's tariffs have everyone (rightfully) spooked.
Good morning, family! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. Thanks so much for rocking with me today. Appreciate you giving me a bit of your time.
Hope y’all remembered to set those clocks! It’s Sunday right now and I’m tired as hell writing this. Hopefully, I’ll be back to normal by tomorrow. We’ll see.
Been a while since we’ve done this, but:
In my cart 🛒 : I’m not the biggest Samba guy in the world but, man, these leopard print joints are crazy. For that price? Feels like a steal to me.
On my radar 👀: Missed on the Apron Records 180s this weekend. What a bummer. On the lookout for any restocks. Miiiight just hit the resale market on these. Is it worth it? Somebody talk me down.
Let’s dive in.
It’s 2020 all over again
Remember when nobody would spend money during the pandemic?
We had no idea what the world held for us. Everything shut down. People were losing jobs. We couldn’t go outside. Keeping your savings steady felt necessary. We didn’t know what we were up against.
Unfortunately, folks, it seems we’re back there again. This time, there’s no pandemic. Just a president leveraging the financial health of his constituents to get a leg up on allies and enemies alike.
What’s happening: Consumers around the country are pulling back on discretionary spending because everyone is worried about everything getting so damn expensive. The weight of President Donald Trump’s tariffs is falling on the consumer.
Prices on essentials like groceries and gas have already begun to rise as America wages tariff wars with countries across the globe.
It’s still early, but the pending impact of these tariffs has forced companies to inflate their prices to stomach this extra tax. Prices on everything have already begun to rise.
That includes essential and discretionary goods alike. Clothing, computers, liquor, toys and more have risen or will be on the rise soon.
As Trump continues to flip-flop back and forth on various tariffs against various countries for various goods, economic instability has taken over. With that, everyone is tightening their belts again.
Why that matters: The pullback from the consumer has already made its way to the footwear industry.
Overall footwear sales have declined dramatically year over year, according to data from the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America.
An industry sales survey of over 3,000 stores conducted by the FDRA showed that footwear sales have dipped by 26.2 percent year over year for the week ending in February 22.
Be smart: This will directly impact all brands you know and love. While many have worked to move their supply chain lines out of China, every brand you know still operates out of the country to some degree. Here are some numbers via Sneaker Freaker.
22 percent of Nike’s total production
20 percent of Adidas’ total production
25 percent of Puma’s total production
25 percent of New Balance’s total production
28 percent of Asics’ total production
The big picture: These tariffs are a gamble both politically and economically.
The current administration is willing to bet that people will endure some financial pain to accomplish its larger economic goals, whatever those goals may be.
The lack of spending is a pretty clear sign that, no, people won’t be willing to stomach this. Rightfully so. The better question is how much noise folks will make — and how much the Trump administration will be willing to endure — before they pull back on this strategy.
We’re going to find out those answers sooner rather than later.
So y’all don’t like the AE 2, huh?
It’s still too early to make rash decisions on the AE 2. After all, we’ve only seen half a sneaker at this point.
Yes, but: That hasn’t stopped the internet from completely roasting these joints so far. The half of the shoe we’ve seen is half a shoe that very few folks seem to like.
In our last newsletter poll, 54 percent of you called them ugly. Another 24 percent were confused about why they were rolled out on an earnings call. This is a valid complaint, by the way.
It’s not just us. Sneaker collab analyst extraordinaire Bimma doesn’t seem too enthused either. Scroll through the comment section on this post, and you’ll find plenty of people agreeing with him.
The early consensus seems to be that these ain’t it. And, to be fair, I get it!
Here’s why: Yes, it’s early. It’s just half of the silhouette. We’re not even sure what colorways of these we’ll get down the line. But the design language here seems so different from the AE 1, which was obviously a huge hit.
The upper material seems to be a strange departure from the Foamposite-like TPU that was the staple of the AE 1.
That section stemming from the toe seems kind of weird. I'm not entirely sure what’s going on with it.
Plus, Adidas's strategy of showcasing a half-picture in an earnings call that only analysts would see initially suggests that the company isn’t completely confident in the AE 2.
Don’t get it twisted: I’m still team “Let’s wait and see” before I throw these in the nearest dumpster. It took me a while to warm up to the AE 1 after the initial look, too.
We can’t make a complete determination on these things until we see them. That’s my stance and I’m sticking to it.
An Air Max day special
The homie Ad Sneaks on Instagram unveiled an insane Oregon Dunks Air Max fusion for Air Max month.
What you’re seeing: This is an Oregon Duck PE Air Max 97/95. These look insane.
Like the Air Max 97/1 fusion, this model takes two pieces from classic Air Max models and meshes them together. This here has the upper of the 97 and the sole of the Air Max 95.
Between the lines: Sneaker News points out that this particular fusion was used for the GS run of the original Air Max 97. Instead of using the full-length air unit for the kiddies, they used the sole from the 95.
Don’t get your hopes up for copping these. This is one of those limited models coming from Division Street — the NIL collective run for Oregon by Phil Knight. These joints exist for one reason only and that is to raise a ton of money to pay for the best athletes to come to Oregon. These are going right to GOAT and Flight Club. They’re going to be super hard to get.
Even with that being the case, I thought these were awesome enough to show y’all. Please, join me in dreaming about owning these.
The Kingdom Hearts 1s
When Adidas said it would be a Superstar summer this year, this was not necessarily what I had in mind.
The brand is known to do some weird stuff with its collaborations, but this take on the Superstar from AVAVAV is…something else.
There’s also the Moonrubber Megaride, which definitely looks like Sora’s shoes from Kingdom Hearts. IYKYK.
Y’all wild, Adidas. Please put these back in the PlayStation.
What’s droppin’, bruh?
Puma x F1 Inhale “75th Anniversary” — Monday, March 10
A Bathing Ape x Crocs “Carnation, Chai and Oxygen” — Wednesday, March 12
Salehe Bembury x New Balance 991v2 “Color be the Palette” —Thursday, March 13
Brooks x Jeff Staple Adrenaline GTS 4 — Thursday, March 13
CNCPTS x New Balance “$1,000” — Friday, March 14
Nigel Sylvester x Air Jordan 4 “Brick by Brick” — Friday, March 14
That’s a wrap, folks. Thanks so much for reading today. Appreciate you. Have a great week. Wear some heaters for me.
If you’ve got any questions, comments or concerns give me a shout via email at mikedsykes@gmail.com or shoot me a message here via Substack.
Until next time. Peace and love. Be safe, be easy, be kind. We out.
-Sykes💯
"That section stemming from the toe seems kind of weird. I'm not entirely sure what’s going on with it."
It looks like a slice of licorice pizza landed on it.