The 5K Marathon to Barney's

Dawn approaches. You sluggishly waddle into your closet, where you strip to your underwear and proceed to change into a Hanes Tee, your old basketball shorts or yoga spankies and grab your 30 gig iPod as you head to the front door. Your sneaker choices are... Asics, Nike, Gucci, Reebok... wait, did you say Gucci? That's right folks. Gucci, as well as a thirving subculture of high street fashion are marching the streets of Tokyo, Paris, New York City and almost any other major city in the world for that matter. This is not the first time that major designers as well as smaller-named fashion designers all over the world are vamping basketball shoes.

Hedi Slimane of Dior Homme has enthusiatically promoted a "gutter glam" image of hairband-esque uniforms that take Sid Vicious and Nancy and force them into a whirlwind of chic fabrics, brazen shades of metallics and wardrobe them for a trip down memory lane right to the early 1980's CBGB. Have fashion directors brought about a new wave of high end casual to consumers paying top dollar? If any sensible person has owned a pair of sneakers, one would know that sneakers rarely outlast regular shoes, regardless of the fact that they had been worn on a daily basis or are only brought out once or twice a year. So, you think that designer shoes end at canvas logo keds? Think again. Some of fashion's most outlandish creations are drenched in crocodile, ostrich, and snakeskin leathers. With gold-accents and braided horse hair, these shoes are to only be worn with a fur coat, at David Lachapelle's latest onset project in Central Park, following unneccessary media coverage, later worn by Lindsay Lohan.

So, what is the deal we ask? What IS the point of lavish sneakers? And since hundreds of millions of increasingly expensive athletic wear are being produced by the season, what should we look for next: Victoria's Secret and their $7 million sports bra? Bags and clothes from time to time, have the ability to outlast their expiration date. Sneakers? Your father's wedding tux? Some items aren't always just as big the second time around. To put it into perspective, would a 20-something girl dream that someday, maybe she could wear her mother's vintage Swarovski-encrusted Nike Air Force 1's? I guess only time can tell. Safe purchases aren't always safe, but don't shift to the other end of the bench and purchase a risky outfit just so that you are an original, unlike anyone else.

It is sensible to buy a clean pair of casual shoes for your Diesel jeans, perhaps some stylish kicks to enhance your image of athletic agility. Buying designer sneakers to work out in, paying too much for sneakers or simply wasting resources that could stock the accessories department at Harrod's with a year supply of jewels is not worth it. Take this into account: the life of running shoes lasts from 6 months to about a year. Anytime over that, white sneakers turn yellow, the soles begin to flatten, and the aesthetic maintenance becomes too complex. Keeping a balance away from the creme de la creme of absurdly high-end workout gear to the same Shell-toed Adidas you sported in high school is a sureshot way to avoid unneccessary attention. In short, trying too hard (or trying too little for that matter) can hurt your image. So next time you consider couture gym shoes, think that workout gear was never really meant to impress, it was created to maximize your performance by givng the athlete the ability to move swiftly with no pain or discomfort. After all, we want our workout to be comfortable as well as manageable. What do most fashion designers know about athletic garb anyway? My bet is that Salvatore, Karl, Christopher Bailey and the likes have no extensive background in the knowledge of Gore-Tex soled tennies, either.