loool this article is ******** for me, talking about the fashion part
from 1998 to 2010s this shoe was THE ghetto shoe in France, and by the ghetto shoe i mean that if you had that on feet people would identify you like a drug dealer/thug/etc, a "racaille" in french. i dont know as much about us, but i'm sure that it was never a iconic pair there.
Literally, in France if you ask someone what a thug looks like (not the current thugs all over the world with slim fit clothes and girl hairs lol) they would answer you its a black/arab person with a lacoste tracksuit and a TN on feet.
For the anecdote, my old cousin who witnessed the '98 of the TNs said me that at first the shoe was very expensive (and before, the shoe was always full priced at FLs in france) and drug dealers, who had more money than others, began to wear them, like someone would buy a gucci shoe to show off. It settled a trend and the people from the ghetto began to wear those shoes. It was at the time even considered as part of the uniform of a drug dealer lol. At least, thats how it began in his hood and thousands of hoods in France.
Now Nike is trying to re-brand the TN as a fashion shoe...truth is that also today if you walk with TNs in France, people will see you as a thug, and 10-20 years before it was worst.
I talked only about France, but its the same for Belgium, netherlands...and i believe the best sales of TNs has always been France..