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Maybe I’m just getting old, but I'm finding luxury fashion harder to define by the day. What used to be determined by craft, materials, and scarcity, now extends as far as a $1,800 Balenciaga trash bag and plain white Prada tank tops.

Fashion is really wild!

For Spring/Summer 2022, it’s John Galliano’s Maison Margiela's turn to get in on the ever-popular act of disguising something crappy as opulence, with its all-new lace belt, which — as eagle-eyed readers would’ve already established — is literally a grubby shoe lace.

Retailing at $180, which actually seems pretty reasonable when compared to a $2,000 trash bag, Margiela’s stained lace belt is akin to a belt Shrek would wear to keep up his saggy potato sack pants, but with an added hand-written Margiela motif.

The brand’s website explains that the lace belt comes “complete with the Margiela logo" and that it can be "tied for an adjustable fit,” as if an adjustable shoelace is added bonus and an example of Galliano’s artistry.

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In truth, I’m not sure what else to say about these, because they’re literally a pair of used shoe laces. I thought we’d realized how ridiculous fashion was becoming when Balenciaga’s disgusting Paris sneakers dropped last year, but clearly as Margiela has proven, I was wrong. It's called fashion, look it up!

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