Steve Madden's Diana Ross Collab Was Just a Big Joke

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Guys, we've been punked. It turns out that when Steve Madden said he was teaming up with Diana Ross on a line of sneakers for Footlocker, he was joking. WWD initially picked up the news after Madden made a comment about it at a business conference. Now, they've got an update from the company explaining that he was just kidding. Apparently the sarcasm just didn't come through.

Fashion blogs generally regard WWD as a trustworthy source, but as the Thread points out, there's another reason we were all so eager to believe in a Ross x Madden x Footlocker collab.

In our defense, we're shopping in a world of Yoko Ono t-shirts and clubwear by a Beverly Hills lawyer's daughter who just happens to have a television show about her family for no reason in particular). Rodarte just designed figure skating costumes for the Olympics and models are designing what they model. Lindsay Lohan managed to disgrace a respected fashion house (clearing its executive board at the same time) on her downward spiral into booze, drugs and oblivion.

By now, there's no such thing as a collaboration that's too strange to exist. Soon, to really stand out, brands are going to have to throw caution to the wind and start creating merchandise completely without the help of celebrities.
· RackedWire: Steve Madden and Diana Ross Plan Sneakers [Racked]
· Madden's Humor [WWD]
· Diana Ross x Steve Madden = Joke. Like, an Actual Joke [The Thread]