Saw this headline the other day and thought it sounded salacious so decided to bookmark it and come back to it when I had a bit of time.
First thought: this shoe is ugly. If I think a shoe is ugly it’s hard for me to get past that fact.
Second thought: I’ve come around on plenty of ‘ugly’ shoes over the years but why is this different? I guess…maybe I should give it another look.
Getting over myself to dig in despite the fact this shoe is simply ‘not for me’ takes a headline like the one @gq wrote: ‘Most important…’. For me to care. The key word being IMPORTANT.
‘Best’, ‘SOTY’, ‘Top’ are words pretty much left out of the article, so I can at least suspend disbelief for a moment…is it ‘important’?
The writer posits that this collab is a long time coming, ups and downs for bape vs. Nike, nigo’s mark in the culture, and the fact that it’s finally happened is what makes it ‘important’.
And…I dunno. It’s hard to argue that it’s not significant to the timeline of streetwear vs. sneakers. But…’important’ to what end? Cuz you could argue almost any release is ‘important’ if you’re not defining the metric with which it’s based on.
Does it mean that all of these companies and designers sued by Nike actually have a shot at collaborating with them? Is it ‘important’ because it’s a signal that ‘bape’ is now more or less legitimized in the eyes of Nike (even though they’ve been Uber successful over the years?)? Or…why is it so ‘important’ exactly?
I know these ‘think pieces’ are meant to sway us one way or another, but my take is that it’s still ugly…and…I don’t really care if it’s important.