Viral £600 sliders are utterly plain & cost is daylight robbery but here's why everyone's dying to buy them

Scottish Sun

2 days ago

These expensive rubber sliders have gone viral precisely because people like us are enraged
ALL THE RAGE Viral £600 sliders are utterly plain & cost is daylight robbery but here's why everyone's dying to buy them
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ANOTHER week, another trend to get our Primark knickers in an almighty twist about.
This week, it's luxury fashion brand The Row and its basic-looking new 'Alma' sliders, inexplicably priced at £600.
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Zoe Kravitz steps out in the £760 flip-flops
Credit: Goff
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The Row is the fashion power­house set up by US twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen
Credit: Getty
In stark contrast to designer rivals like Hermes and Gucci, whose slip-ons are plastered with logos or distinctive shapes, The Row's pair are remarkably, utterly plain.
They're a cartoon-like, bulky slip-on with an open toe (the sort you wear to shuffle in to take the bins out) that come in red, white and black, made from rubber.
Yep, £600 for something so basic — that's roughly a couple's weekend in Ibiza.
Yet, these plain sliders reportedly sold out at The Row's London store in just one day.
So why are the fashion crowd — me excluded — dying to get their mitts on them?
We call this 'rage bait'.
Silly money
These expensive rubber sliders have gone viral precisely because people like us are enraged.
Social media is awash with fury, dismay and bafflement over their exorbitant price for such plainness.
This hysteria is 'rage bait' in action: Driving engagement — comments, shares, views — and ultimately pushing furious shoppers straight to that click-to-buy button, generating huge revenue via their own outrage.
It's a clever, yet simple, trap. Fashion followers, seeing 'everyone' discussing these shoes, foolishly believe owning a pair will make them a talking point or instantly cool.
Lynsey Hope and fashion expert Neka Okonji review dupe fashion items from DHGate
They walk right into it, then find themselves £600 down.
This isn't a fluke, it's a strategy and The Row — the fashion power­house set up by US twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen — has capitalised on this before.
Earlier this year, it released a plain red-soled flip-flop with a plain black strap for £670.
They sold out not only for the brand, but through retailers like Net-A-Porter, snapped up by the likes of Kendall Jenner and Zoe Kravitz.
It's the same formula. Simple, subtle — but silly money, all under the guise of 'quiet luxury'.
The Row has now rocketed to sixth place on the Lyst Index of fashion's hottest brands — its highest-ever ranking. Searches for the brand are soaring, almost tripling in the past three months.
And the Olsen twins aren't the only ones at it.
In 2023, luxury brand Loewe mastered this trick when its plain, ribbed £325 cotton tank top (featuring just a tiny logo) became the Lyst Index's most searched item. This, too, was utter lunacy.
Even if I won the Lottery, paying that much to do an impression of Onslow from Keeping Up Appearances isn't something I can ever buy into. And this 'rage bait' strategy isn't new.
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The Row's £600 sliders
Credit: supplied
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Primark's near-identical £5 version
Credit: supplied
In 2007, luxury trainer brand Golden Goose sparked outrage with its £410 Super-Star trainers. The pricey shoes came 'pre-distressed', essentially dirty, yet carried that huge price tag.
We journos were baffled but, despite the uproar, people snapped them up, and in the process ignited a trend for all things pre-distressed, from dirty jeans to Balenciaga's practically destroyed trainers, retailing at up to £1,290.
Let's call it what it is: Daylight robbery. But the people with wallets fat enough to pay for these so-called luxury items are, well, mugs.
In the case of the sliders, why pay £600 when you can get a Primark pair for a fiver?
They are almost identical.
For once, us normal folk are the real winners because we have the high street. Designer dupes have come on leaps and bounds in the past couple of years and now you can proudly look like a wally in your cheap rubber sandals as opposed to bankrupting yourself.
Even if a vest is one of the most popular items, would you get one from Tu at Sainsbury's for less than the cost of a meal deal and a loaf of bread — or a designer one for £325?
It's a no-brainer.
Prestige fashion used to be about craftsmanship and quality, now it's about who can make the most outrageous item go viral.
And people lap it up, not because it looks good, but because it's EVERYWHERE and yet unattainable to the rank and file.
So while some brands keep pushing rage-bait items, aiming to drain our cash and sanity for likes, I say: Long live the high street.
Its clever dupes offer identical style, no matter how wild, without costing a fortune.