Holy Caballo Blanco. (If you don’t know this influential runner, you should and COG will help.) Hint: He represents a major trend in outdoor retailing. Retailers are falling all over themselves for your $, to put a pair of “his“ shoes in your closet. Oh yeah, there’s a mystical component going with the shoes. You’re paying for that, too.
And as we’re normally crushingly cynical about voo-doo slick sales gimmicks, we must report: we were gob-smacked when we met Caballo Blanco. In less than a minute we were delivered into spiritual transcendence of the minimal.
To begin: We’re at Outdoor Retailer Trade Show (OR), at the Vibram booth, scarfing the best lunch nosh anywhere in Salt Lake City (Don’t talk to us about convention center catering, especially while we’re eating…). “We’re taking a break, eating here,” we advise our new, female COG reporter (COGger). “Just enjoy a bite.”
“What the heck are these boots?” she ignores us (as usual) and points. OK, the boots are desert tan, tiny, cute, combat-style hip.
