The Tom Sachs NikeCraft shoe was introduced to us as "BORING." in bold text. Followed by a paragraph explaining how the sneaker shouldn't be the most exciting thing about you, as if taking a shot at hypebeast culture. "Put them on and forget about them". They claim that the shoe took 10 years to make with the goal of 'being simple'.
With all that context, and with the obvious knowledge that with the Tom Sachs name the sneaker is going to have a wild demand, as you might expect the shoe was wildly inexcessible, bought up immediately by bots and resellers to buyers who pay 3x to 7x the retail price, to undoubtedly be worn in a way that runs opposite to the proposed premise of the shoe.
Nike and Tom Sachs for surely knew this would happen, but my question is, is there any real belief in the sneaker being a simple, forget about sneaker, that could be worn by people who want a simple pair of sneakers (and pay the retail price for it), or is there not a single bit of genuine belief in this idea and it's all simply a marketing ploy to build hype.
Make no mistake, I am not claiming that marketing to build hype is invalid, wrong, or anything of the sort. But that doesn't have to be exclusive from an actual genuine belief in the design and the goal of the product.
What if the sneaker was a pre-order? Let the resellers buy hundreds, or even thousands of pairs. Let a regular sneakerhead or Joe Shmoe buy a sneaker or two. The shoe is scheduled to rerelease, but will undoubtedly be bought up instantly once again by bots and resellers.
The status quo doesn't have to be the status quo, I am not proposing that this would be done with every Hype release, but if you're going to make a shoe a "General Purpose Shoe" why shouldn't it be the closest it can be to a wide and accessible general release?