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Got a Spare $1,850? Buy These Filthy, Torn Balenciaga Designer Sneakers

The "full destroyed" shoes look like someone ran them through a mud-filled shredder.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper
2 min read
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The Balenciaga sneakers look like they've gone through the mud already.

 Screenshot by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper/CNET

Most people prefer to buy shoes clean and undamaged, then mess them up in the course of everyday wear. But life in the designer world is different. Spanish luxury fashion house Balenciaga is now selling a line of "full destroyed" shoes, and you'll pay extra for the privilege of wearing a sneaker that looks like it's already been run through a muddy shredder.

The designer sells a regular shoe called the Paris High Top Sneaker for $625 (£510, AU$901)  -- out of most people's shoe price range, anyway. But on Monday, Balenciaga released a limited-edition "full destroyed" version of the shoe. These shoes appear to be caked with dirt and to be torn and scuffed. And you're going to pay extra for the, uh, broken-in version of the shoe: These sell for $1,850 (£1510, AU$2,668). 

"Rippings all over the fabric," the website notes.

One version of the shoe, the one shown above, seems to have been taken out into a muddy field or sunk into a swamp, though the site does not note if that's real dirt or some kind of artificial coating.

Social media enjoyed messing around with the messy shoes.

"Balenciaga is releasing a new pair of shoes, and I have to assume they are just trolling people at this point," wrote one Twitter user.

Said another, "If you bought the $1,850 Balenciaga sneaker that looks like it was run over by a lawnmower please seek help but also please reach out to me because I would like to understand where your mind was at in that moment."

Representatives for Balenciaga did not immediately respond to a request for comment.