The newly debuted bright blue, yellow, and red Lidl trainers are going for upward of $500 on eBay.
The fashion marketplace is a complex beast. Who can say what will become the next trend? One day it’s touting a $4000 Gucci purse, the next it’s wearing an exact replica of your pet’s face as a full-coverage mask.
This week, for whatever reason, the hip thing is $15 sneakers made by a supermarket brand. And being that they are the hip thing, they’re now going for over 30 times their original price. That’s right: If you want to be one of the cool kids, you’ll need to shell out $500 or more to get your own pair of supermarket shoes. Also known as Lidl trainers.
Image credit: LIDL
These Lidl trainers are cute, no doubt, but why exactly they’ve garnered so much interest in the fashion marketplace is hard to pinpoint. They aren’t endorsed by a basketball star; they aren’t designed by a rapper with a God complex… they’re just shoes you can buy at a grocery store. Only, now, you can’t. They were all snatched up within minutes of hitting shelves, and hours later landed on auction sites like eBay with a jacked-up profit margin.
Describing the madness that occurred at the Finnish Lidls, one customer told news outlet Foreigner, “Everyone lined up normally. At exactly 8 am they (ran) or quickly walked to the shop and the sneakers’ shelf emptied in less than 10 seconds.” Another saw customers piling “on top of each other” as overwhelmed store managers shouted: “Remember the social distance.”
Not even Covid-19 can stop the power of these shoes!
Perhaps the term “anti-fashion” can be applied to this situation. Anti-fashion consists of jarringly ugly, inexpensive, or just explicitly contrary clothing choices worn to be ironic. Think Crocs and grandma sweaters.
Whatever the allure, these Lidl trainers are making their original purchasers a nice chunk of change. Makes me wish I had a good fashion radar. Unfortunately, I’m still wearing the same look from 2003 and waiting for it to be called vintage.
