Justin Bieber — soulful pop-star, sappy husband, and style icon — may have experienced the sensation of anonymity for the first time since he was a child, when a confused police officer couldn’t understand what was going on with his sneakers.
According to a story Justin Bieber retold on his Instagram Stories, which was later documented by Vanity Fair, Justin once broke down the stylings of Virgil Abloh’s Off-White sneakers for a suspicious — or curious — cop. (Bieber made sure to tag Abloh in the post, prefacing his dramatic retelling, adding: “My God, bro. You’re frigging — you’re killing me, man.”)
Like many of Abloh’s designs, the sneaker in question — the coveted Off-White x Nike Air Max 90s — has a large zip tie attached to it; the cop who stopped Bieber apparently assumed it was some sort security tag, accidentally left on, or maybe the mark of stolen merchandise.
“I had to tell him, ‘Bro, it’s just fashion. I don’t know,’” Bieber recalled. “[The officer’s] like, ‘It sure looks like a security tag.’ I was like, ‘Nah bro you can just check it out. It looks like it though.’”
For those who weren’t completely satisfied with this explanation, there are a few more possible reasons Abloh put zip ties on his designs. According to Highsnobiety, they could be a reference to Abloh’s history with industrial design, or the mark of his renowned attentions to detail, or maybe just a way to make it harder for resellers to sell his sneakers at a markup. Who knows. But no matter what, we can all agree that Bieber is correct: It’s just fashion, bro.
