Rock On Hipster
As a guy who wore Chuck Taylors (aka Converse All-stars) when they were cool, then when they were not cool, and then still when they were cool again, lately I kind of feel violated by the hipsters’ collective adoption of the footwear as their own. Granted sometime in my mid-twenties I finally got sick of having cold and wet feet and gave them up, the sight of a guy in skin-tight black jeans and a pair of Chuck high-tops still kind of makes me cringe on multiple levels. Well, at least one good thing has come as a result of the re-re-resurgence of their popularity; the introduction of Fair-Trade Chuck Taylor knock-offs. Now, not to sound too much like a curmudgeony old coot, but I still look back fondly at the days when Chuck Taylors cost $20 and were made in America. Well, guess what, times have changed: Made in Indonesia, $47, owned by Nike. And silly me, I thought shipping jobs overseas was about saving consumers money.
(AP pictured on left, No Sweat pictured on right)
Anyway, the Autonomie Project has recently unveiled their own version of the sneaker made fairly and retailing for $54 (lows) to $56 (highs). Now granted I am pretty hopped-up on Dayquil right now, AP’s shoes, although available in a wider range of colors do look suspiciously similar to No Sweat’s footwear offerings only with a significantly larger price tag. As far as who has better Fair Trade street-cred, you can read up on that yourself. Rock on hipsters.
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