Adidas “shackle shoe” cancelled before its debut

[Honey]

The designer Jeremy Scott said his inspiration was a toy monster from the 1980s.
But to critics like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the sneakers looked like “slave shoes.”
“The attempt to commercialize and make popular more than 200 years of human degradation, where blacks were considered three-fifths human by our Constitution, is offensive, appalling and insensitive,” Mr. Jackson said in a statement Monday.
Hours after that statement was released, Adidas said it was canceling the $350 shoe, the JS Roundhouse Mid.
News of the cancellation prompted widespread coverage, with plenty of finger wagging. “The shoe design appears to glorify so-called ‘thug wear,’ ” said Mary Mitchell, a columnist for The Chicago Sun-Times, who added, “The JS Roundhouse Mid shoe exploits the same ignorance that made showing one’s underwear in public a fashion trend when it really is an assault on public decency.”

But is it racist? In addition to the condemnations, images of the sneaker (which were posted on Adidas’s Facebook page last Thursday) received more than 38,000 likes through Wednesday, and many of the 4,300-plus comments were positive.
“They’re cool shoes, and some people might get offended, but that was in the past,” one commenter wrote.
In a statement, Adidas said, “We apologize if people are offended by the design” and noted that Mr. Scott’s previous designs for the brand had included panda heads and Mickey Mouse. The shackle design is “nothing more than the designer Jeremy Scott’s outrageous and unique take on fashion and has nothing to do with slavery.”
Mr. Scott did not respond to a request for comment, but he defended his design on Twitter, where he posted a photo of what he indicated was the shoe’s true inspiration: a stuffed toy animal called My Pet Monster with nearly identical orange shackles. “My work has always been inspired by cartoons, toys & my childhood,” he wrote.

Among the fashion cognoscenti, Mr. Scott is known for his outlandish club-kid look, and has dressed celebrities like Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj. Though he owns his own label, Mr. Scott also collaborates with mainstream labels like Adidas, Swatch and Longchamp that want a pop of color. “People don’t want quiet fashion from me,” he said in a New York Times interview last year. “They want the whole nine yards.”
Some fashion blogs and media outlets have rushed to Mr. Scott’s defense. “Jeremy Scott is not racist,” Foster Kamer wrote for The New York Observer. “He just enjoys ’90s kids cartoons.”
The Styleite contributor Rachel Tension also defended Mr. Scott, saying that critics often see “racism where racism isn’t necessarily hanging around.”
Still, fashion is certainly not insulated from charges of racism. Last August, Vogue Italia published an article entitled “Slave Earrings,” citing “the decorative traditions of the women of colour who were brought to the southern United States during the slave trade.” Editors quickly blamed it on a bad translation; the text accompanying the online slide show was removed, its headline replaced with “Ethnic Earrings.”

Adidas might have tempered the criticism if it had better acknowledged the misunderstanding instead of merely invoking Mr. Scott’s “outrageous and unique” style, said Monica L. Miller, an associate English professor at Barnard College and author of “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity.”
Though the design’s offensiveness was most likely unintentional, it was still “shortsighted,” Dr. Miller said. “This is one of the legacies of living in a post-slavery and post-colonial world,” she added. “Talking about these moments honestly and openly will be the only way to reduce them in the future.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/fa...-sneakers.html

[Air Quotes]

My first thought when I saw these was "My Pet Monster" but what are you gonna do.

[Grimmlok]

^ as it was intended. I find it hilariously that people would throw the butthurt slave crap at it. Does the purple on the shoe represent THE COLOR PURPLE?!?! OMGBUTTHURTTTTT

[MohandasKGanja]

This kind of reminded me of the Reebok Incubus women's running shoe that was on the market for a whole year before Reebok was informed that an incubus is a demon who comes down and violates women while they sleep.

[Laurent]

But to critics like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the sneakers looked like “slave shoes.”

Thank goodness for Jesse Jackson, because on my own, I would never see even a quarter of the stuff he says we should be offended about.

[Sarzy]

My Pet Monster was awesome, I had one of those! They do look just like the handcuffs that were on that.

[hustle4alivin]

I could definitely see how shoes with shackles could be seen as offensive to some people. The shoes looked tacky and ugly to me anyhow moreso than offensive. I certainly can't tell people what to be offended by or not, but young black males love their athletic shoes and a bunch of them wearing shoes with shackles could be interpreted as something more negative and sinister than the original intent by some people. I don't think that was the intent of the designer at all, but you know how it is.

And I didn't realize that people who voiced their opinion about shackles being associated with slavery meant that they're "butthurt." Learn something new everyday...

[Grimmlok]

No, people who think bright purple and orange stupid looking shoes with fake plastic shackles (that don't actually connect, so how could they stop anything anyway) are referencing slavery are a few cans short of a sixpack.



Slavery?

[HWBL]

I just find them to be offensively fugly.

[Chilly Willy]

Give me a break. This is stupid.

[Brookie]

Eh, it's another occasion to feign offense at something. They're ugly shoes, with or without the plastic shackles.

[MrsDark]

Well nobody ever said jack about this song in 1984:

RJ's Latest Arrival - Shackles 1984 - YouTube

[angelais]

Jesse Jackson needs to shut his pie hole, not about the shoes but about everything in general. It's not like "buy one pair, get a slave owner free" kind of a deal.

The shoes are ugly as hell and that's enough reason not to sell them.

[witchcurlgirl]

did slaves wear $200 sneakers? they must have been helpful when running away.

[Lobelia]

They make me think of prison, not slavery. But then, I did do several years of hard time.