These P3.3M 'Birkinstock' Sandals Are Probably Already Sold Out
The rapper Future already has a pair, as does the singer Kehlani and a so-far unnamed art collector. They're Birkinstocks, the latest high-end troll offering from the Brooklyn-based f*kboy factory MSCHF, the (sort of) secretive collective behind viral product/performance stunts like $3,000 Holy Water Nike trainers and '88 Holes,' in which a Damien Hirst spot painting was disassembled with each spot sold individually.
They're £50,000 (around P3.3M) Birkenstocks made from, per its website, "Destroyed Birkin bags." Somewhere an expensively coiffed woman in a penthouse apartment opens her walk-in wardrobe and shudders through her Phoebe Celine.
View this post on Instagram>p>pAn idea that I can only assume started with a pun, which is fair enough really, the Birkinstock is the Franken mashup of an actual Birkenstock and an actual Hermès Birkin bag, the luxury totem with a mythical waiting list and fanbase (you know the one about Drake). A better investment than gold, the high watermark of the handbag. Produced in a super limited run, the "most exclusive sandal ever made" is, to clarify, a totally unofficial item that uses the cork sole of a Birk and the carcass of Birkin bags bought by MSCHF from resale sites à la StockX. Prices start at $34,000, reaching $76,000. Would-be buyers must inquire via email, which doesn't even guarantee you a pair, seeing as the collective only had four Birkins to work with in the first place.>pTo give you some context, the Holy Water trainers sold out in a single minute and, allegedly, the Hirst spots even faster.>p>pGray jeans? Come on!>p
Photo by BIRKINSTOCK.>p“We’re just sort of fascinated with destroying expensive things and creating something new out of them,” Daniel Greenberg, MSCHF’s head of strategy told the New York Times. "Birkin bags are like a cultural meme, a symbol for a certain kind of wealth," added Lukas Bentel, one of MSCHF’s creative directors. By “mashing it into a really accessible object,” they aim to make people question its inherent symbolism. It also helps, I'm sure, that they're guaranteed to sell out.>p>p
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This isn't the first time that high has borrowed directly from low in the footwear space, Japanese label Hender Scheme has carved, literally, a very nice niche for itself by remaking classic sneaker and shoe silhouettes (Air Jordans, Adidas Superstars, and Crocs) in expensive naturally tanned leathers and charging £500+ for the privilege. Virgil Abloh has long dabbled with an industrial approach to inspiration, using letters, arrows, exposed seams, and overt referencing in his work, as has Samuel Ross of *A Cold Wall. Then there's the legacy of demolition in art: Marcel Duchamp's sculpture and the Auto-destructive movement of the '60s, a term invented by the Swiss artist Gustav Metzger, in which destruction was inherent in the creation process, a reaction to war, nuclear devastation, and a sense of cold nihilism within the human condition; the mechanical ouroboros devouring itself.
Also, there's something funny about the idea of a load of 28-year-old dudes called Jacob in black T-shirts and Cutler and Gross glasses huddled inside a Williamsburg warehouse cutting up Birkin bags and selling them to rappers for £50,000 in the name of artistic protest.
What a laugh! What a world we live in!
This story originally appeared on Esquire.co.uk. Minor edits have been made by the Esquiremag.ph editors.
