It’s a Friday at 8 a.m. on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles.
Two blocks are filled with people lined up waiting for eBay’s Wear ‘Em Out store to open. The hype is real, with exclusive pricing on collectible kicks to those who wear them out of the store. And speaking of the hype, Complex caught up with Offset as he walked in wearing the friends-and-family exclusive “University Blue” Louis Vuitton x Nike Air Force 1 Low.
What is your holy grail sneaker?
My 1985 Jordan 1. That’s my holy grail.
What are your thoughts on retail stores making customers wear shoes out of the store and in some cases even throw away the boxes when buying hyped releases?
Honestly, I don’t respect it because first off we got the choice to do whatever we want. Second off, as a shoe collector, bro it doesn’t matter if you got the shoe if you don’t got the box. Especially with our time and our day, the packaging on the shoe box is crazy, so why would you take the box away? I understand you don’t want people to resell, but at the end of the day, people are gonna do what they wanna do. You know, and shout out to the resellers because I love y’all. Personally, being who I am, I can’t just necessarily walk the stores when the release comes, and I’m not waiting in line, so I love the resellers.
We see you in so many rare sneakers, but what pair would you say you wear the most?
I love all my shoes so much as a collection of a whole and I wear all my shoes. A go-to sneaker would be my ’85s because I feel like ’85s never have to match the outfit and you could have on baby blue with Chicago ‘85s and it’s still going to be just like a magic moonwalking through the crowd, you know.
Have you ever owned a sneaker that you were afraid to wear?
My Louis Vuitton Air Force 1’s, shoutout to Virgil. I was like R.I.P., like he’s gone, so I didn’t want to wear ‘em but me knowing my boy Virgil, he would want me to wear ‘em so I threw them on and this is my first day wearing them.
You just got a Virgil tattoo, can you speak to the influence he had on you and the sneaker world as a whole?
Virgil is the Basquiat of fashion, the pictures that he paints and the way that he puts products together and different materials are out of this world. He was open and gave a lot of knowledge. Some people sometimes hold on to their secrets and Virgil always inspired and told us his. He always wanted you to be more creative and shared his story. They got him where he was at and all the barriers that he broke and he was fearless with everything. He did. Whatever he put together, he felt like it was the greatest shit ever. And it was. And it is. To be able to inspire the youth so much and be able to change the game no matter what anyone would say is like Virgil did it differently. He touched everybody and made sure when he got into these high positions, like at Louis Vuitton, he still always showed up to the streets and always came back to where he came from, making sure that we had all the stuff that he was making. He was just a great brother.
You were just at the Balenciaga show, how was that experience?
Very exclusive first and foremost, you have to be there. You have to know if, you know, shout out to Demna because he’s just an amazing designer, man. Everything he’s coming with is always new. It’s always head turning in both men’s and women’s wear. It’s always beautiful. That show is fire. They did it in the crypto building while the market is kind of crashing right now. So it’s kind of genius to put a show together and how he did it was just beautiful and organic. They had an Adidas collab, shoutout to Adidas. They had a heel that was for women, and they went all the way up to your knee where they had the Three Stripes going up the side. I feel like just incorporating that high fashion with that brand was just crazy.
Can you speak to some of the new risks you’re taking in fashion and why?
I feel like everything I put on looks good first off on me. Everybody can’t pull everything off and I just have the advantage that I can pull it off. And so I like to explore and just challenge myself. If something might be not so comfortable to wear, I get comfortable in it because of who I am. I just feel that fashion is about taking risks, jumping out there, and doing something new. So you always stay ahead of the curve, so that way you’re leading and not following trends because I never wanted to be a trendy person because trends end, so I’m in it for the long run.
What is coming up for you musically?
I will be dropping singles in June, so this is right around the way. Then I’m working on the album, a very crazy classical album like I did before, a little bit more turnt, beautiful, and giving a lot of visuals. You’ll be seeing me deactivate my Instagram soon because I’m coming.
