Gen Zers are buying dirty sneakers for hundreds of dollars

Gen Z is once again bringing back a dead millennial trend.

The younger generation is gravitating toward Golden Goose shoes — the shoes that are purposefully designed to look scuffed and dirty.

Fashion retailer Coggles explained that the “signature pre-scuffed style…has been done to demonstrate a nonchalant attitude rather than an unkempt aesthetic.”

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While the dirty-looking shoes had their moment with millennials, they started gaining attraction among Gen Z last summer and really took off in 2024.

The popular Golden Goose shoes start at $565 on the brand website and can range up to $2,350.

Italian designers Francesca Rinaldo and Alessandro Gallo founded the brand back in 2000, but their shoes didn’t launch until 2007 when the classic Super-Star model hit shelves.

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Zoomers have taken to TikTok to “end the Golden Goose slander.”

One user justified buying shoes that look dirty to begin with because when you buy clean sneakers, they’re inevitably going to get dirty.

“The beauty of Golden Goose shoes is they already come a little bit messed up,” she said. “So they’re meant to be lived in, they’re meant to be worn. You don’t walk around and feel guilty for creasing them. You don’t walk around and feel guilty for getting them a little bit scuffed.”

Someone in the comments argued that in that case, buying second-hand shoes makes the most sense.

Another user had the same reasoning, saying in a video: “They come dirty, so I don’t care when I get them dirty.”

“You don’t have to clean them, because as they get dirty, they just look more like a Golden Goose sneaker,” she said. “It’s brilliant.”

One person who shared that she bought her Golden Goose sneakers customized was met in the comments with a lot of confusion.

“Ummm are they supposed to be dirty??” one questioned.

“Are they already used,” someone else asked.

“This whole time I thought people just didn’t care about washing their golden goose shoes but it’s actually the style,” a user admitted.

And parents aren’t exactly thrilled to discover their children are spending this much money on dirty-looking sneakers.

One dad told his daughter that she was “f–king insane” after she told him how much she spent on the Golden Goose shoes.

“The youth of today,” he said in the TikTok video. “It boggles my friggin’ mind, there’s a company that literally makes sneakers look old and worn? Why don’t you just buy my old sneakers?”

But Gen Z can’t get enough of them — no matter what their parents think.

Golden Goose CEO Silvio Campara told the Financial Times in December that sales showed that their customers were mainly young people — and 80% could be classified as Gen Z or millennials.