Have you ever felt pressured to buy something when you really don’t want to?
That’s what happened to Terror Squad rapper Remy Ma, and now she’s sharing her experience. In an interview with Footwear News, the shoe addict reminisces about what happened after getting her first big check. She recalls shopping with fellow rapper Fat Joe’s wife, Lorena Cartagena, at a Manhattan-based luxury shoe store, Petit Peton.
Cartagena put peer pressure
to the test for Remy, whose real name is Reminisce Kioni Mackie, to purchase a pair of $1,500 shoes. With her Bronx, New York, upbringing, Remy remembers being hesitant. “They had purple ostrich thigh-high boots. She was like, ‘Rem, you’ve got to try them on; they’re crazy,” Remy remembers. “I flipped the shoe, looked at the price, and I’m like, ‘There has to be a decimal missing or something.’ I’d never seen a shoe cost that much in my life.”The pressure worked as Remy left the luxury shoe store with the shoes —and a matching bag.
Now, as her career continues to skyrocket, the mom and wife realizes that her love for fashion has grown to new heights as well as some of the price tags. While she has an eye for fashion, Remy admits it’s not at the top of her
priority list. “Sometimes I wish I had more of a relationship with brands so I could stop spending so much money, and they could send it to me for free,” Remy said. “I don’t get the fashion-forward credit. There are certain artists where that’s what they’re known for, but I don’t feel any type of way.”While her shoe collection, ranging from Timberlands to Bottega Veneta thigh-high boots, is impressive how different
financial challenges inspired her to adopt healthy shopping habits. Most of her purchases now are geared toward getting items she couldn’t afford growing up in the Castle Hill projects. “A lot of times, my purchases are influenced by the purchases I couldn’t make as a kid,” Remy said, according to AfroTech. “Throwbacks of certain sneakers, I’m like, ‘I’ve got to get them. For tenth grade me, I’ve got to do it.’”