COMME DES GARCONS PLAY x CONVERSE

Both on the street and in social media feeds, the CDG Play Chuck 70 is everywhere. Before Instagram took over, baby hypebeasts and proto-VSCO girls flooded Tumblr pages with tightly-laced 'Chucks with the heart on the side': feet askew and oversized knots dangling for reblogs. Peeping out from trendy frayed cuffs or white Nike crew socks (cross-branding seems to be acceptable here), the Play heart logo is like a scarlet letter. It’s an earmark of a sneakerhead-in-training – and they might not even be aware of it.

The Play Chucks represent a contemporary cliché, the intersection of high fashion and sneakers. However, it’s not to say these two circles have never crossed paths before. Crossovers like Gucci’s tennis shoes in the 1980s, or custom Louis Vuitton monogram Swoosh Air Force 1s à la Dapper Dan, required exorbitant amounts of cash and/or street cred. Even today’s Balenciaga offerings cost more money than sense. And despite Kanye West’s promise of ‘everybody who wants to get Yeezys will get Yeezys!’, the former ‘Louis Vuitton don’ is yet to hold a candle to the Play Chuck, which retails for almost half of a Yeezy BOOST 350 v2. With something like the humble Converse Chuck Taylor working with a credible fashion house like Comme des Garçons, mere mortals were offered a taste of the high life.