the rise and fall of yeezy

In a sneaker lifes youtube video he describes the rise and fall of the yeezy. The yeezy is a shoe made by famous rapper kanye west. He originally worked on the shoe with Nike but then transferred to Adidas thus leading to its downfall. When the shoe first came out it was the holy grail of all sneakers, it was impossible to get and extremely expensive but everyone wanted it. Now the shoe is very easy to get and is more affordable than it was before but now nobody wants it. Ever since the shoe was made widely available it has led to a decrease in popularity as well as resale value for example a shoe that used to sell for thousands are now only selling for 200. Everyone used to complain that the shoe should be made widely available to everyone but now people want the shoe to be limited because it's not cool to have something that everybody else has. In conclusion, making the shoe in high quantities destroyed its reputation to the sneaker community.  

It is making a mass-culture theory argument because it directly shows the effect of mass producing items. The yeezy used to be one of the most sought after shoes in the world selling for a retail price of $220 and fetching upwards of $5000 a pair on the resell market. After switching to Adidas the yeezy slowly started to decline as they produced more pairs making the shoe less limited. This led to a decrease in popularity amongst the consumer because they did not want a shoe that everyone could get. People want something that stands out and separates them from the rest. 

Even though the yeezy is not as popular that is used to be among the streetwear and shoe community it has still accomplished many things for the brand as a whole. The yeezy was one of the most sought after shoes and the biggest complaint at first was that it was so hard to get. Kanye realizing this problem he decided to make them in bigger runs going from only 3000 pairs to over 300,000 for each release. This is beneficial to the brand itself in the way that they are making more money but on the other end it has ruined their reputation to the community.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEjwqKcmnj8

Who is the most popular consumer in fashion?

Baker, Renee, et al. "Identifying tween fashion consumers' profile concerning fashion innovativeness, opinion leadership, internet use for apparel shopping, interest in online co-design involvement, and brand commitment." Fashion and Textiles, vol. 6, no. 1, 2019. Gale Academic Onefile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A583933163/AONE?u=mlin_n_danvers&sid=AONE&xid=be7a64fe. Accessed 16 Jan. 2020.

I am familiar with the search process of using the schools database so for me it wasn't too complex of finding an article to my liking. I choose this article in particular because I am very interested in fashion and what makes certain clothes and brands more popular than others. I ended up choosing Gale academic Onefile as my database choice and I have found over the years using the other databases and not just the library's database is more helpful because it provides more sources than what you would find on the library's database. It is also much easier if you do an advanced search because it allows you to use multiple keywords to narrow down the options. 

In this article it discusses the influencers of fashion particularly focusing on the U.S. childrenswear market, fashion adoption theory, and whether or not consumers can be segmented into different groups. This childrenswear market or “tweens” are children ranging from the ages of 7-14, they are responsible for the $43 billion in spending power and apparel represents the primary purchase category. Fashion adoption theory is an individual's decision making process to adopt any given style. Tweens have dominated the consumer market because of their ability to adopt new styles. These consumers can be broken down into different groups fashion innovators, fashion opinion leaders, innovative communicators and fashion followers. These groups are all responsible for the advancement of new trends and styles.

I thought this article was pretty interesting for me personally because it gave me information that I was not familiar with and I actually learned from it. I didn't know that the consumer group was mainly focused around kids ranging from 7-14. I was confused mainly for the reason that probably all of these kids don't make their own money and have to rely on parents to make purchases. So why is it that the people who dont make money are responsible for what is popular in fashion. That just confused me because when I was that age it didn't really peak my interest to wear these “cool” brands and now they are the biggest consumer group.