The other day someone laid into me in the comments of one of my posts telling me that I was out of my goddam mind for saying ‘I think it can sometimes be irresponsible to treat sneakers as they were actually meant to be treated’:
Back in 2004, I used to stop by Dave’s Quality Meats off the Bowery in New York City every weekend…I loved going into Dave’s because everyone who worked there was nice and just liked the fact that you were there…so when I found out @123dortiz was getting his own pair of Air Max 90’s, I was elated. At the shop, I snagged Dave’s last pair, from Dave himself.
So…the sad part is…I wasn’t of the frame of mind where I could actually *wear* this pair. They just meant so much to me. I debated time and time again, but I could never bring myself to actually wear them.
Fast forward about 8 years…and…I considered wearing them…I was at a different place, mentally, and felt I could finally pull them off, but…I started looking at myself as ’the last a$$hole in the world who is going to take something pristine and is going to destroy it by wearing it (on the filthy streets of San Francisco).’ So I pushed it off longer and longer.
And then, on one of my missions to ‘cut down’ on my collection, I started eyeing the DQM pair. I knew I was never going to wear them…because…I just did’t want to be that guy. I found some guy online who wanted to buy them and he offered me $525 for them - an unheard of amount for me. I figured I’d sell them to this dude and then I’d buy a used pair and I’d pocket the difference…which wasn’t insignificant.
So that’s what I did.
Now, it doesn’t totally illustrate the point I was trying to make, but the fact is - I could buy and wear 25 different pairs of Jordan 1 Hi’s…or…I could probably even buy close to 100 pairs of random shoes at a Nike outlet for the price of a pair of Off-White Jordan 1’s. Or I could buy one pair of something significantly cheaper and put the rest of that money towards my kids…
So, for me, wearing a pair of shoes I could sell for $5k wouldn’t be a flex as much as it’d be irresponsible behavior.