As seen on Unboxed Issue 61. The Unboxed newsletter covers the most important stories of the week across sneakers, sports, and fashion straight to your inbox on Mondays.
Cold take: Aleali May is one of the best to do it when it comes to collaborations, and not just as a woman. Her style is unmatched, fusing sneakers and fashion and the audiences between the two. This past week, Aleali unveiled her partnership with Mattel that immortalizes her in Barbie form… sort of.
When Aleali dropped the campaign, the excitement was high (at least on my feeds and within the SoleSavy Women’s Community). It wasn’t until drop day that many of us realized that it does not come with an Aleali Barbie at all, but rather, an outfit that she designed and curated. Not even a doll! To our dismay, it did not include any sneakers either, which actually makes sense when you consider licensing – I guess? The language was confusing because they led with imagery of a 1-of-1 Aleali Barbie (available for private auction) wearing her debut AJ1 collab, alongside imagery including her latest AJ14 Low “Fortune.” The key words here were “inspired by.”
This isn’t meant to downplay the collaboration at all, but the thought of having an Aleali May Barbie was just so exciting that anything other than that was going to be hard to live up to. Additionally, the set was a pre-order item, which to our knowledge, was not communicated. It ships in June 2022. Personally, this feels like a miss: Mattel could have sold many, many units of this, especially given that Christmas is right there.
Will I be canceling my multiple orders? No. Do I have to rethink my holiday gifts? Absolutely. On the bright side, we did compile a Women’s Holiday Gift Guide for some easy but thoughtful things you can pick up at multiple price points.
To keep up with the latest in women’s news, stay tuned on Saturday mornings for our weekly recap series, ICYMI.
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