This (to an extent). NB have always been expensive (as their advertising over the decades tells you) but you could still see a relationship between cost, materials and build. There's no way a trainer produced in contemporary times, in major factories, should be costing £200+.
It must have been around 2014/15 when they really started pushing MIUSA with the reintroduction of the OG 990, the 997 etc that shit started to really ramp up price-wise across the board. I remember buying the last release of Flimby-made 1500 UKGs in 2010 and they were around £100—would be almost double that now.
Thank fuck they've sorted out the shape on the 1500 and 577 now though—Flimby were releasing some bottle-nosed dolphin shit for years.
The NB hype is always cyclical, just feels like everyone is on the 990v3 upwards at the momeent (The v1 and v2 seem to still be readily available—shame, my two favourite 990s and I've hooked up the Teddys too).
BRING BACK THE 580!
I do think this is part of a wider discussion around the cost of retro trainers though.
generic_guy wrote: You'd hope the materials were better given they're about double the price.
I like NBs but get annoyed as they used to ALL be MIE/MIUSA and good quality, then suddenly the quality is shit unless you pay 3 times the price and then you can get a decent pair.
It's not that different from the way other sneaker firms work just that NB were decent value after Nike and Adidas went to shit quality so annoys me more.
