Said Lil Nas X, quoted in "Lil Nas X Satan Shoes will be recalled as part of settlement with Nike/Nike sued MSCHF Product Studio for trademark infringement over the black-and-red, devil-themed sneakers" (The Guardian).
Can't you make shoes out of shoes — decorate them, bedazzle them — and then sell them? We won't get an official legal answer, because Lil Nas settled the case. Nike retains the threat of litigation over anyone who tries to use their shoes as a foundation for a fashion/art project.
Lil Nas loses nothing other than the opportunity to fund litigation to establish the principle he speaks as though he cares about. But the shoes that were made — all 666 pairs of them — were sold in the first minute, and anyone who bought the shoes can now get a refund of the purchase price — $1018 — but no one will do that, because they're notorious, and they are clearly more valuable now that they've become so famous. I see on eBay that a pair recently sold for $5,000, so only an ignoramus would participate in the recall.
Did anyone ever really believe that devil-themed sneakers were outrageous? Kids wear devil costumes at Halloween. The devil is not a big enough villain to make anything edgy in 2021... or in 1951.
But Big Sneaker put its foot down, and ooh!, it's almost illicit to possess these things.
***
There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.
Posts
