My first pair of 'bootlegs'

Too many words on slides.

Alright y’all. I finally capitulated. It wasn’t a long road to the dark side, but I finally pulled the trigger and bought a pair of fakes.

I - for one - grew up in the era of 99 cent flip-flops at the local drugstore. I think I owned maybe one pair growing up going to the beach with my mom and traded for a pair of Adidas slides when I was in high school. I used those Adidas slides when I was living in the dorms at UC Santa Cruz (shared shower shoes) And then I brought that pair with me to New York when I lived at 331 W. 22nd Street in Manhattan as it was another one of those ‘shared bathroom’ situations. After a certain point, those fell apart. And so I bought some fake Haviana’s when I went traveling throughout southeast Asia for a couple of bucks. I’ve definitely owned my fair share of slides throughout the years.

Having grown up in the mountains, every home I lived in (growing up) had carpets. Carpets make winter a bit more bearable (even if they’re gross). But when I moved in my wifey - she was never interested in carpets, so I had to figure out my ‘walking around the house’ situation. And it’s been flip-flops or slides ever since.

I own a few pairs now…some Hurleys, some Adidas 3 Stripe slides, some EVA Birkenstocks, some Teva flops, and a pair of those A Tribe Called Quest x Vans Slides, but those things are SO tight I don’t understand how I’m even supposed to wear them.

Since we moved to Sacramento, I’ve left many of my slides outside and they’ve decided to re-size themselves in the sun cuz the sun is BLAZIN’ out here. These Adidas’ have shrunk at least 3 full sizes in the sun.

And the Hurley’s are starting to come apart.

And the Birkenstocks have finally given up the ghost and started shrinking, too.

I was starting to feel like it was a good time for a new pair of slides.

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A bunch of people sent me this post…and this is what I’d refer to as ‘perfect timing’, because I figured I’d give those Yeezy Slides a shot a few weeks ago (and if you know me, you know that I’m like 2 weeks ahead of the rest of the world).

From what I understand, the REAL Yeezy Slides retail at like $55 and they’re reselling for quite a bit more. Cute. No chance I’m paying resale, and I ain’t setting an alarm to sit behind my computer to refresh my browser 150 times in six minutes to drop $55 + tax + shipping on a pair of foam slides, so decided to give the bootleg route a chance.

I did some searching around and saw pairs on Walmart, Amazon, eBay, Aliexpress & DHGate and went with the best price…DHGate - $11 shipped from China. $11 shipped from China. To put that in perspective - A few months ago I literally mailed a LETTER envelope with 8 #824pack cards in it to China for $28 and the envelope was lost. So $11 for an actual package - with coverings for my feet - from China seems like a total steal if not borderline criminal. I spent more on a Carnitas Chimichanga last week. I’ve spent more on pairs of socks. I settled on a pair of black slides and a pair of black ‘foam runners’…which were an additional $14.

I waited about 3 weeks and the slides arrived yesterday. Quality isn’t bad (how could they possibly mess these up?), there’s no logo, and upon first wear - they are goddam comfortable. Like really cushy. Maybe a bit small. But I already recommended them to a couple of friends. Totally worth it for $11.

These DON’T come with logos, so…I dunno…I don’t feel that bad. I don’t feel like a total poseur. And I’m not going to be leaving home with these on, so, you know, I’m won’t be impressing anyone but my wife and kids. My 6 year old said ‘ohhh daddy those are COOL!’ How much of a bootleg did I buy if there isn’t even a brand name?

What I find really interesting about these and the foam runners - apparently there is no trademark/trade dress protection on these. And I don’t understand it. For whatever reason, the reproduction of these (without the Adidas logo) is totally legal. Talking with @snkrinvestor - he told me that you could create a perfect 1-to-1 of these by literally putting them in a 3D printer. Same materials and everything. Which is just crazy to think of.

I did NO research on the paragraph above. I just saw a few different headlines and my mind went wild. All those headlines I read could be absolute bullshit. But…tell me - if Yeezy doesn’t have a trademark in place, or a copyright…doesn’t the legal precedent go to he who claimed it first. If he who has the bigger platform is claiming that he claimed it first, is that really the case?