Brian Donnelly, better known to the hypebeast community as Kaws, is an artist and designer who creates statues, collectible toys, and works with clothing companies, allowing fans to wear his characters and designs. The plushies and figurines he creates are often very limited and have high demand, resulting in resale values hundreds of dollars over the original retail prices. Kaws has previously worked with brands including Dior, Jordan, Supreme, A Bathing Ape, and DC, but most recently, he has been collaborating with Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing manufacturer and retailer. Over the past few years, Kaws and Uniqlo have also incorporated characters from Sesame Street and Peanuts in the collections; however, it was just Kaws artwork for last week’s release.
The highly anticipated collection featured T-shirts with various Kaws characters on them, along with multiple tote bags. Both the bags and shirts retailed for just under $15, an extremely affordable price point for a hyped streetwear release. The online drop was extremely laggy, but almost all sizes for the shirts were sold out in around a half hour. When I went onto the site, I had to keep clicking the ‘Add to Cart’ button multiple times before the shirts I wanted were actually added to my cart, only to have them disappear after a minute or two. After a frustrating 30 minutes, I was told that my order was incomplete because one of the three shirts I had added was no longer available in that size. This disappointment was later followed up by an order confirmation and within a week I had the shirts at my house. I ended up keeping one for myself and selling the other two to my friends.
On StockX, many items from the release are only going for $10-20 over their retail prices, which is rather ironic considering thousands of people around the world were extremely eager to get their hands on anything they could, many with the hopes of reselling. Videos surfaced online from malls in Asia where people were stampeding Uniqlo stores, pushing each other out of the way, and even wrestling on the ground, just to buy a couple of $15 shirts and bags. This violence is something you would expect for a highly limited sneaker release, with hundreds of dollars in profit at stake, not for shirts with a potential to sell for just over retail. Uniqlo just announced on their website that there will be a restock of the collaboration in late August for those who desperately wanted in on the collection but were unable to purchase anything. However, if you can’t wait a few months, you can currently purchase the collection on third-party platforms for just a few dollars more than you would have paid at the store.
