Luxury fashion brand Balenciaga is known to push boundaries and take it to the next level with every new launch. Keeping with the brand’s disruptive moves, it just launched a limited collection of overly distressed sneakers, named ‘Paris Sneaker’. Available in red, black and white colours, the sneakers are released in high top and mule varieties. Priced at a whopping $625 and $495 respectively, the sneakers, which are available for pre-order, are made with fully-destroyed cotton and rubber and feature rippings all over the fabric. It has the brand’s logo printed at the edge of the toe and its graffiti logo in colour contrast on the sole. The shabby-looking aesthetic of the sneakers is even more accentuated in the campaign images to suggest that they “are meant to be worn for a lifetime”, Balenciaga said, in a press release. According to the brand, the new sneaker is “a retooled classic design which interprets mid-century athleticism and timeless casual wear in black, white, or red, with a white rubber sole and toe with distressed canvas and rough edges, affecting a pre-worn look.” As expected, netizens were left baffled over the extremely worn-out looking design of the new Balenciaga sneakers and took to social media to express their views about the same. “I can find those in the garbage can for free,” a user wrote, on an Instagram post of The Business of Fashion. Another user wrote: “This is honestly a slap in the face to those actually facing poverty. Idk why high-end brands want to utilize the ‘poor aesthetic’ so damn bad.” “Paying thousands for absolute garbage? Sounds like a spot-on reflection of where much of the industry is at,” a user commented. The extra destroyed sneakers are a limited edition of 100 pairs.