In the same way balenciaga and saint laurent modelled high tops after Jordan 1’s, with buscemi building his entire collection of luxury sneakers after the “streetwear” Jordan’s, grey goose takes the distressed trend and applies it to luxury material and finish. The tape and cut soles are purposeful, not unintended like a pair of scuffed vans. And if it’s 500+$, theres a good reason. The canvas would probably be made from stronger fibers, dye would be more natural. The shoe form would probably fit into prêt-a-porter couture, etc. Shoes like these, though not what you find on the everyday person, takes explicit and more implicit trends and applies quality designer cuts and material. You don’t see this on your everyday chuck 70 or low top vans because they don’t want to drop 500$ on “garbage” like this, perhaps due to lack of knowledge.

In many ways I’d argue this is the opposite of a boring dystopia. It is a very closed niche of fashion, Golden goose. Where as a boring dystopia is a form of conformity, all modern fashion trends are too. Palace Long sleeves with calabasas joggers. Asian trousers and kimono-esque flowy tops. European Chelsea boots and denim. All seen as fashion but in reality, are extremely wide spread with lots of followers. More avant garde and distressed works, only more recently seen after 2000 (I’d argue due to helmut lang), have less followers and fans. There is a popular joke of paying thousands to look like a hobo, but the thousands of dollars, much of which go into craftsmanship and material as well as idea and form, make traditionally garbage garments into some of the most quality pieces that fashion has to offer.

Tl;dr I’d argue it’s not dystopic and it’s not vans