At first glance, Golden Goose’s Dad Star sneakers may look like the beat-up old gym shoes lying around the house. However, their high-price and imprinted star badge make them far from ordinary.
We were on board with the brand’s use of nostalgia to market their shoes, but this design has gone too far.
These shoes are clunky, vintage, and caked with a worn-out yellow tint. They try to sell this idea of nostalgia, equating the Dad Star sneakers to a family heirloom “to be passed on from generation to generation.”
Images on Golden Goose’s marketing campaigns are likely meant to portray this very scene of a father passing down a pair of his shoes to his daughter. The cherry on top is the description: “Pass it on. memories are happier when shared”. The image is further described by saying, “in the attic, hidden among dusty objects, a father rediscovers his favorite sneakers. And with a smile that lights up his face, he gives them to his daughter: and with them, also the memories of a lifetime.”
Golden Goose has turned nostalgia and the idea of a gift into an opportunity to gain profit. There are economic transactions in every relationship, and every economic transaction within a relationship impacts that relationship. These shoes take that to another level by attaching a price tag to the authenticity behind a family heirloom and household relationships.
Golden Goose’s design and marketing for these sneakers attempt to create nostalgia and an artificial emotional connection to familial objects. Yet, these are not your dad’s shoes. If you own these shoes, it’s because they were purchased; they were not gifted to you after years of memory-inducing wear and tear.
We have been pleasantly surprised thus far with the intentness and style choices of Golden Goose, but they went overboard with these. It’s ridiculous that they are trying to create artificial authenticity, and it works.
Why are these shoes priced at $600 retail and, furthermore, sold (used) on sites like Poshmark for upwards of $400? Truthfully, we all buy ripped jeans, off-white Nikes, or clothes with intentional patches stitched on for detail. Paradoxically, the design behind the distressed, grunge look is authenticity, memories, and stories behind the worn-down details. The artificial authenticity Golden Goose creates through its sneakers is fake “fluff” made to remind us of valuable “fluff,” but in actuality has no true “fluff.”
The celebrities like Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, and Shia LaBeouf legitimize this fake fluff when they wear Golden Goose sneakers. Resultantly, the trickle-down fashion cycle occurs until the general public doesn’t realize that we all already possess the “fluff” the shoes are faking. (For more on the trickle-down fashion cycle, read our article “From ‘slashing’ to ‘grunge’: How fame creates attention economists and oblivion”).
Image found on Golden Goose’s Official Website
Image found on Golden Goose’s Official Website
Image found on Golden Goose’s Official Website
The Dad-Star Sneakers and all the shoes we have explored in this series market nostalgia as an extension of social and cultural capital. They are falsified evidence of our connections and experiences. It is annoyingly genius, and it has lead to success.
Why Style Sells 
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