In our continuing series All I Want For Christmas, we ask me we like what they’d like to get as a gift.
Rob Walker writes the New York Times Magazine’s “Consumed” column, which looks at the ways we spend our money, and the many ways marketers reach our minds. He’s written extensively about what he calls “murketing,” the new, trickier ways that people who sell reach people who buy. Needless to say, he’s against it. So what does the man who tells us what not to buy want for Christmas?
“I already have too many shoes, so it would take something pretty special to make me happy about getting another pair. Here’s a for instance: I’d gladly accept the full-on custom, handmade footwear experience offered by ExIT Shoes, in Portland. This costs $1,000, and would involve a gift-giver bankrolling multiple trips to Portland from wherever it is I live. Look at all the steps involved! Including a week of wearing a "trial pair” around to make sure everything is perfect! The result is something like this or this. Plus a story I’d never stop telling, which is probably the point.“
Custom shoes by Exit Shoes, $1000