FWIW....I compared my Defiant's to my LV's (Line Up), SBB 1.0's, Blue Union, ROY's and recent Shadow's (ROY's and Shadow's being some of the BEST executions IMHO). My wife (a luxury brand junkie) noticed right off the bat that these had the appearance of a luxury brand sneaker and she's not into sneakers AT ALL! One thing I did notice is that my Defiant's were made in Vietnam where as all of the other 1's were made in China. For those that have had these in hand and have owned or held a YSL SL10 (I sold mine), I would say that the material used on the Defiant's is similar in initial feel to the touch as far as stiffness. Both LV and YSL use stiff leather and they're made in Italy. That being said, I have yet to feel an Italian made sneaker or any other luxury brand sneaker with leather like a ROY, Shadow, etc.... . Those of you that have been fortunate enough to experience luxury brands know what I'm talking about. If you haven't experienced luxury brands, I suggest that you take advantage of the opportunity when it presents itself. They say that the shoe was supposed to have a "couture" feel as well as inspiration from luxury automobiles. I can tell you for a fact that the leather in a Ferrari is NOT like ANYTHING you'll get in the most expensive Ford Mustang, Corvette or something along those lines. Hell, MB Tex is probably better than the top of the line domestic offerings. They are marketed to different groups of people that have different tastes, experiences and exposure. They are SUPPOSED to be different and unique. I said all of that to say this...OF COURSE JB isn't giving you Italian quality materials or attempting to do so at a price point of $175. Is the material worth the extra $15? That's debatable, it's about what they can legitimately sell to THEIR market. Is the shoe for everyone? NO, it doesn't appear to me (IMHO) that JB wanted the shoe to roll out like that. You didn't see the usual celebrities parading around with shoes before the release date pr hyping them up. It seems to me that maybe JB wanted to give us regular, hard-working folks, a shoe with a high end feel that we could still afford. You're not going to get an Italian luxury sneaker below $500 brand new. He offered a Jordan 1 that you could wear with luxury brand and still pull off the look as opposed to sporting a "basketball" sneaker. It's no different than PacSun selling their FOG collab clothing. FOG boutique clothing is for an entirely different market, it's not intended for the masses. Instead of JB attaching a celebrity and story to it, having a massive campaign and roll out like OW and FOG, they tried to do something for regular guys this time. That's just MY opinion, but hey, what do I know....sorry for the long post
Thanks for your time!
