What your Basic B!tch Sneaker says about you
10 foot soldiers & the campaigns they didn't sign up for
Welcome back to our series, “What your [XYZ] says about you,” where we offer our $0.02 on what’s trending. Consider this our ongoing social commentary on the psychology of our purchases and choices, completely rooted in science, of course, and totally serious.
Inspired by our viral TikTok series and powered by the same logic behind our Myers-Briggs for shopping, we present you: Show us what you buy, and we’ll tell you who you are ;)
Worthy of our attention this week: shoes that bear the weight and live up to their name — sneakers.
Unless you live at a longitude marked by abrupt climatic swings and a certain seasonal severity (the Midwest, domestically speaking), shoes are, for the most part, sartorial statements with little regard to utility, no different than fist-sized clutches or non-prescription eyeglasses. Nobody wears stilettos for the arch support, and nobody is going to look you dead straight in the eye and claim otherwise. There is something almost endearing about the announced effort, the visible tax, the frank admission that yes, this shoe I’m wearing is about everything but walking.
Sneakers, on the other hand foot, are the simpler cousin. Their announcement is: These shoes are made for walking. The Italians would call them sprezzatura, the French laissez-faire, the Americans CBK-JFK-JR-coded. And yet.
The sneaker was supposed to walk its walk of neutrality and comfort, the great utilitarian opt-out, but instead, we got sneakerheads and sneaker drops. Did the other shoes already drop? (A heel-head has never existed. A Manolo shoe drop is not a thing. Maybe the only enthusiasm of that caliber was their NYC sample sale, which perhaps says all that needs to be said.)
Let’s hazard a theory here. The sneaker is (sneaky) complicated, NOT in spite of its simplicity, but because of it. Boots, heels, sandals — the SKU explosion across those categories is so vast that the hierarchy is rendered hullabaloo outside of a few landmark pieces. The sneaker form, by contrast, is mercilessly constrained: two panels, a sole, a toe box, a logo (if that). Fewer variables mean more meaning gets attributed to each one, i.e., brand, silhouette, collabs; each shouldering more than its fair share of heavy lifting. After all, don’t the simplest things say the most? Less is more??
Colleges have adcom officers, clubs have velvet ropes, Hogwarts has the sorting hat. Basic b!tches have sneakers. Below, 10 membership cards for the BB you hope to become…
If your Basic B!tch Sneakers are…
Golden Goose Superstar sneakers ($595)…the OG of the OG BB sneaker. You are one BAJILLION percent an international student either from Europe or Asia who got your first pair when you were 16 and just kept collecting. (It was an affliction.) OR you just saw them being worn everywhere in school and bought out of fomo and begged your parents to pay the keeping-up-with-the-Jones tax of $600 for used-but-not-used sneakers. Not a hard sell! If you wear the non-basic GGDBs you think the color and style of your shoes directly display / communicate your personality and that there is indeed a 1:1 perfect correlation.
Maison Margiela Replica GATs ($595)…guys who wear this vs girls who wear this are two very different breeds, believe it or not. If you’re a GAT-sporting gal, you def grew up on the East coast with brothers or a strong masculine presence in your life. You’ve been single for what feels like forever: either fully married to the job or stuck in the perennial swag gap where the friends are great, the career is great, the shoes are great, and the men who do surface simply do not clear the bar. Hobbies include film photography and mourning the good old days when you could cop these in an SSENSE sale (sans duties too, could you even imagine).
Salomon XT-6 sneakers ($185)…you’re as readable as they come. You are a barrel-pants-rocking, AirPods-Max-toting, Tame-Impala-playing, paid-Substack-perusing, Rhode-lippie-smearing, clean-girl-aspiring, sourdough-starter-naming, ceramics-class-considering, sauna-rave-attending, sober-curious American. Was I close?
Isabel Marant Beckett sneakers ($790)…you are a
reformedhealed heel-head who thought this was the right baby step towards sneakers (which, it was, 8 years ago, when these resold for just under a Benjamin). You probably discovered these at the same time you did Zadig, Kooples, et al. Aspirationally French girl chic but still thinks Courreges is niche and probably acquired the Re-edition vinyl jacket in the last 2-3 years. I feel like you could go really weak in the knees for an ice-cold Pacifico under the right circumstances.
Loewe Ballet Runner 2.0 sneakers ($890)…you are Asian and over the age of 30. You order still over tap at restaurants and believe the premium is worth it #health but your dinnermates would beg to differ and it’s too bad their wallets are also taking the hit for your personal
hangupphilosophy. You told yourself you wouldn’t fall victim to the tropes of a 30+ y/o but here you are with your farmer’s market hauls, pricey house plants, 4x a week PT, early-to-bed-early-to-rise rhythm, and questionable fluency with terms such as “water purity” and “precision-pour”. Currently watching Beef and so far, are sad that it doesn’t live up to Season 1, but everyone’s telling you to be patient and stick it out.
Loewe x ON Cloud sneakers ($750)…you are from Dubai or at the very least spiritually from Dubai. The type to glorify the types of F&B chains like Joe & the Juice or Arabica Coffee or Ladurée that you’d find in aggressively air-conditioned, high-end international malls. The pink model with the original Loewe logo has been discontinued and replaced with a new one with a substantially worse logo, which means that if you have the old version, this is one of the few times in your life you have been financially rewarded for being a trend follower: RRP was $450, resale is $1k+ owing to the cheugier replacement. Needless to say, these have never seen the insides of an EQX.
New Balance X Miu Miu 530 SL suede sneakers ($1,270)…you are admittedly a low-grade BB and this was one of your few concessions to mainstreamdom. Your style muse is Alexa Chung although it’s always more of an “in theory” thing vs an “in practice” thing. You subscribe to the full-stack indie ecosystem which includes independent stores, hydroponic vegetables, jazz records, wooden furniture, and niche German speakers. Haters call it performative…
Chanel CC sneakers ($950)…you work in fashion or something fashion-adjacent, and have collected this in more than 2 colors. You look at the label before buying things, which to most is uncouth, unimaginative, un-tastemaker-like behavior, but to you is just a heuristic bc time = $$. Big defender of constraints and thinking inside the (shoe)box. Running to buy David Epstein’s new book.
Nike V2K Run sneakers ($150)…you’ve done your research and these were the closest to The-Row-esque sneakers without The Row price tag. But that’s because you truly believe MK + Ashley have conducted one of the most compelling social experiments to date. While you admire the game and respect the players, the best games never end, and thou shalt not cast a vote. You are decently trend-resistant (won’t wait in lines) and won’t buy the flavour du jour (definitely not Dubai chocolate) but not completely immune (ube slaps, ok fine matcha, pandan, and black sesame too). Probably a NYC resident with a weakness for (oversized) black blazers.
Dries Van Noten suede sneakers ($585)…you are 5’7+. Paper-thin soles for paper-thin souls. Kidding. But really, they couldn’t add even a half-inch of cushion??? Ffs. You think this is less egregious than the other BB sneakers because of its discreet nature but don’t deny it: you spelled it “discrete” more than once.
Never stop sole-searching,
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I really haven’t moved on with the times
not me getting clocked for my $50 covid era Becketts lol love this