The Uniqlo x Kaws collab brought out all the hypebeasts in China last weekend when hordes of what I’m assuming are resellers trampled over each other to get their hands on a bunch of t-shirts to resell on Taobao, China’s consumer to consumer e-commerce site. This is probably as close to Black Friday as you’ll get in China. It looks like a zombie horde trying to feast on 200% profits.
UNIQLO x KAWS
in China pic.twitter.com/3i2FWEEbZS— ωsho (@wsho_game) June 3, 2019
You know these people are getting on their phones and listing them for sale 5 minutes later. They’re not even looking at the sizes.
The KAWS x UNIQLO launch was MADNESS 😱 pic.twitter.com/jKbj4IoRvc
— The Sole Supplier (@thesolesupplier) June 3, 2019
They were even raping innocent mannequins. Won’t someone please think of the mannequins?!
KAWSコラボで中国UNIQLOがウォーキング・デッド状態、マネキンが身ぐるみ剥がされてるのやばい
「台に上がってる人!警察呼ぶわよ!!」って言われてる😂 pic.twitter.com/GGTw57uhCP— 紗 (@sishroom) June 3, 2019
Unlike other collabs, these designs are actually pretty sick. So I kind of get the hypebeast on hypebeast violence. It’s not like they stamped Supreme’s Barbara Kruger “inspired” logo on the shirt, marketed it as limited and waited for some Lord of the Flies s**t to happen. Kaws is an actual artist. Sure, he reworks existing icons into his own creations, but at least it’s more of a rework than Supreme. And at least he’s not slapping his brand on bricks and crowbars and selling it at a 5x markup. Yet.