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'Poverty appropriation': Outrage over $600 duct-tape designer shoes

Mary Bowerman
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Designer sells $600 'distressed' shoes
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Designer sells $600 'distressed' shoes

Don't have time to wear in your tennis shoes? For a few hundred dollars, you can buy "effortlessly cool" distressed shoes, which come complete with duct tape and scuff marks.

Shoe brand Golden Goose is selling its line of "Distressed Superstar Sneakers" at Barneys for $500 to $600.

The shoes, which look like a pair that could be picked up from Goodwill or pulled from the back of most people's closets, are made in Italy.

The style features "retro silhouettes and signature distressing techniques to create effortlessly cool sneakers," according to the "About Golden Goose" section on the Barneys website.

And while the tennis shoes may give some fashion savants that "cool" worn look, on social media many people equated the shoes, sold at a luxury department store, with "poverty appropriation."

On Saturday, @fergnerduson tweeted a photo of the pink shoes and said "wait one minute." The tweet was retweeted over 8,000 times as multiple people commented on the shoes.

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Some noted that wearing the shoes in Barneys might make you look like you are more interested in stealing something from Barneys, which sells a range of high-end luxury products, than purchasing something.

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