On Jordan 1s and ornamentation

 

                                                                                   

Yesterday, I was having coffee with a friend of mine who is a kicks aficionado. The new Jordan 1s dropped (sneakerhead parlance for released) on Thursday. I began to explain to him that as I was sitting in my office; there were crowds of people gathering outside my window at Shelflife (store where the Jordan 1s were being sold). He then began to vent regarding the whole kicks industry. Shelflife uses a manual raffle ticket system so, in principle, the process makes use of random selection as opposed to the first-come-first-serve online purchasing alternative which has been manipulated by bots. His grievance was, however, that the people who got the sneakers don’t actually want the sneakers. They bought the sneakers in order to resell them immediately at 200% mark up. He was saying that the people who actually want to wear the shoes don’t get the shoes and in order to get them; they are exploited.

Exploitation is one of the negative aspects of capitalism and what is being exploited in this case is the human psychological need for ornamentation. Ornamentation is anything added to something that provides no functional value whatsoever but an aesthetic quality to something: making it stand out from its counterparts. Ornamentation is ubiquitous across all cultures; be it in facial scarification called Kolo practiced by the Yoruba in Nigeria, or the adornment of feathers by South American Amazonians or in our case tattoos or vanity license plates. The chair that Frank Underwood sits on in House of Cards is necessarily different from the chair that Jon Snow sits on in Game of Thrones. The ring of Mordor from The Lord of the Rings has an inscription that sets it apart from any other gold rings in middle earth. These are but a few examples of how pervasive ornamentation is in human societies, fictional and non-fictional.

There is a particular type of ornamentation that shows up in our times and is summarised in two words: Limited Edition. Only 20 Jordan 1s were sold last Thursday. This is a clear case of ornamentation when the exclusivity of an item makes it valuable or heightens the need to procure it. The Buy-and-Resell people play on this aspect of human nature. But ornamentation as with most things, is dualistic, has trade-offs, is a two-sided coin. On the one side, you have the prudent use of ornamentation which enhances, adds-on and reveals that which has been ornamented. On the other side of the coin is the imprudent or excessive use of ornamentation which produces the opposite effects. It detracts and hides the true essence of that which is being ornamented. An easy way to understand this is using the illustration of women and makeup. Makeup can enhance if used moderately but can hide and change the face completely if used immoderately. Which is what I think is happening with the Buy-and-Sell culture in the sneaker industry. People’s need for exclusivity; being the 1 out of 20 to own a pair of Jordan 1s, is ornamentation taken to the extreme. As a result, the fans of the shoes become hidden by their very own need for ornamentation; it drives them further away from the objects of their desire. Even if they begrudgingly succumb to the strategies of the resellers; the fact that they didn’t want to pay that much money in the first place is another way their ornamentation takes away from them; in this case monetarily. This is a cautionary tale of what happens when ornamentation ceases to be at the periphery and becomes the centre; where functionality or practicality take a back seat to it which is a recipe for regrets and resentments.