Teenage kicks: what's behind the trend for scribbled-on trainers?

There was a time when etching your current squeeze’s name, or maybe just an acid house smiley face, onto your Kickers in Tippex was the height of cool. This season, the fashion industry has taken note(s) and has been scribbling on its sneakers like it’s 1997.

Kim and Kanye’s customisable Yeezy Boost 350 V2s for kids, with “peace”, “love” and the names of their children written on them, sold out almost instantly when they went on sale last week – they have already been restocked. (It can’t have hurt that one-child Truman Show North West wore a pair of her own customised Yeezy kicks for a trip to New York’s Natural History Museum about a week before the drop.)

The new season Adidas Stan Smiths, complete with scrawled phrases such as “yes I’m crazy” and “nobody is perfect”, are currently on sale for $335 (£257). While the Vetements x Reebok Instapump Furies, featuring such choice phrases as: “I’m bored”, “full on life” and “so good”, as well as that old classic the CND sign, sold out in no time earlier this year, despite a £586 price tag. They came about a year after head Vetements designer and industry pied piper Demna Gvasalia was spotted wearing a pair of done-in Converse he had apparently scribbled on himself. Saying things such as “our alter & our hearts”, as well as the name of the Russian singer Zemfira written in Cyrillic, they looked like a particularly high-brow desk in any secondary school across the country. Read more

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