My Conspiracy Theory About the Row Shoes

Hear me out.

This February, in a moment of pure, unadulterated delulu, I purchased a pair of the Row’s ‘Ava’ Mary Jane flats. My rationale was this: I’d spent months looking for good knockoffs, but nothing out there had the same pointy-but-not-too-pointy shape. I’d wear them a lot. And, obviously, I deserved them.

When they arrived, they were a little too tight. (I’d gone a half-size down after being burned by a different pair of Row shows.) But I figured: this is $800-something buttery Italian leather we’re talking about. It will stretch. Right?

On my first day out in my Mary Janes, I took a 28-minute walk (approximately 1.3 miles) around Brooklyn. By the time I got home, I’d realized I’d made a grave mistake. My feet and the shoes were totally busted. Blisters. Scuffed soles. The works. I was devastated. How could I be so stupid!? Then I became angry. How come nobody warned me?? So many people I know and trust wear shoes by the Row. Were none of them walking approximately 1.3 miles around Brooklyn??

Before going any further, I listed my shoes on Vestiare Collective and made almost all my money back, which was lucky. Over the next few months, though, other unhappy customers started coming out of the woodwork (*specifically because I was looking for them), and a conspiracy theory started to take shape in my mind. I remembered that Alyssa Coscarelli told me in an interview I did for the Cut back in 2021 that her Row flip-flops broke just a few weeks after she bought them. So I emailed her. Her story sounded suspiciously similar to mine…