We buy uncritically or to resell without dwelling on ideas such as recycling, quality or sustainability. In the end, these shoes, bought by fashion victims, can only be resold at higher prices to other fashion victims
The news has already been circulating since this summer, especially among passionate about sportswear and fashion. In recent months in some European countries such as the UK, Belgium, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, the German hard discount chain Lidl started selling sneakers with its own brand in its stores that quickly sold out and became absolute cult in the world of fashion victim and in the subset of sneakers addicted. Because? For a variety of reasons.
The first is for the look – bright colors that trace the sneakers object of the lucky ones co-lab of streetswear designers with high fashion brands, what a po ‘big e chunky calls in the sector “Daddy Shoes” because similar to the old New Balance of American fathers. Then for the very low selling price (€ 12.99) and finally for the logic of limited edition which generated the resale on ebay at higher prices (the so-called resell, which went up to 1000 euros for a couple).
Yesterday these sneakers also arrived on the shelves of Italian Lidl stores (also open in red regions) launched from mythical flyer between the sweet provolone with oregano, the portable compressor and the Harry Potter pajamas. In all supermarkets, some have been created long queues of kids, which are certainly not Lidl’s ideal target and in the morning all the sneakers were already sold out.
To understand this phenomenon, we must take a step back.
For some years there is one in the fashion world strange and illogical relationship between ugly products e brand fashion, started more or less four years ago when the designer Demna Gvasalia (creative director of Balenciaga) created a capsule collection of t-shirt marchiate Dhl (yes, the courier’s logo) selling them at unreasonably high prices (120 euros upwards) sold out in a couple of weeks. Also Balenciaga then made one borsa ispirata alla Frakta di Ikea (the well-known blue shopping bag) at 1700 euros, this too sold out.
In parallel sneakers have become the new object of desire not only among sporting goods enthusiasts, but from all over the fashion system. Then there followed the various limited edition co-labs between luxury brands and sneakers: like the Nike Air Jordan at Dior who have generated a parallel online market with prices up to 25 thousand dollars for a pair, and then Valentino and Onitsuka Tiger, the Yeezy di Kanye West first for Adidas and then for Nike (originally designed by Virgil Abloh, then became creative director Louis Vuitton Men), Prada and Adidas and many others. All in limited editions, all unjustifiably expensive, all resold on ebay and other ecommerce platforms at stellar prices.
This one from Lidl might seem like one provocation like: we make a shoe that crosses the “ugly” style that sneaker addicted like – but which is already in a waning trend – we do it with our colors and putting our brand (so it becomes a kind of merchandising of the chain) and we sell it to you at the same production price as the well-known cult sneakers. And we also produce them in limited edition how luxury brands do, why scarcity is still a symbol of exclusivity in 2020 (after all, Lidl itself does it every Monday with chainsaws or car chargers sold at a very low price). Fashion victims are thus inside this perverse mechanism which in the end also resell these shoes and are bought by other addicted at much higher prices. So from the provocation we pass in a moment to a sort of “Apologia for resell” which is certainly not good for the market, especially at this time when purchasing choices and decisions should be even more prudent.
The intrinsic value, quality, sustainability, recycling, the circular economy with which fashion editorialists fill their mouths in articles and TV reports are not at home here. Instead what emerges is one extreme superficiality of a niche that buys everything that has the appearance of cool (in this case starting from the antique par excellence, the shoes of a German hard discount), perhaps to fuel a parallel market that brings no added value, if not to those who resell them.
Ah, along with the sneakers there are also the slippers he horrible white terry socks branded Lidl. So much so that we don’t miss anything.
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