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How collecting sneakers became a multi-billion-dollar industry

A luxury collectible

Released just months before West debuted his game-chang ing Nike x Yeezy line, the sneak ers have become part of fashion history. “They represented a convergence of sneakers, Kanye and high fashion that was con troversial at the time, but such a pivotal moment in the industry,” Morrison said, describing it as “a breakthrough that paved the way for the modern era we see today.” But the price tag remains relative pocket change compared with some of the most valuable shoes on the collectors’ market. The auction record for sneak ers has been broken multiple times since 2017, jumping from a little over $190,000 for a pair of Converse signed by Michael Jordan, who wore them at the 1984 Olympics, to the $615,000 paid for a pair of the basketball star’s Nike Air Jordan 1s in 2020. Then, earlier this year, another of Kanye West’s creations -- the prototype Nike x Yeezys he wore to the 2008 Grammys -- became history’s most expensive sneak ers after selling via a private sale for $1.8 million.

Over the past five years, there’s been an “explosion” in collectors spending big money on rare shoes, according to Caitlin Don ovan, head of handbags, street wear and sneakers at Christie’s auction house. Together with sneaker resale platform Stadium Goods, Donovan recently cu rated a sale focusing on Nike’s Jordan line. The online auction, which concluded this week, featured almost 30 rare pairs, from Jordan prototypes and game-worn sneakers to early limited-edition samples. A pair of red and black salesman sam ple Air Jordan High 1s was the auction’s most expensive single item, selling for $27,500. “From function to fashion, this auction (highlighted) some of the iconic shoes that started on the court, and landed them selves firmly in mainstream pop culture and fashion history, on the feet of Grammy winners and celebrated fashion icons to storied athletes across a number of sports genres alike,” Donovan said.

Surging auction prices reflect the robust growth of the secondary resale sneaker market, which StockX estimates is now worth $10 billion. This figure is predict ed to climb to nearly $30 billion by 2030, as growing numbers of collectors invest in limited edi tion “deadstock” items -- shoes that “must be new and unworn,” Morrison said -- with the aim of reselling or displaying them as prized possessions.

Ligaya Salazar, curator of the London Design Museum’s new StockX-sponsored exhibition

“Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street,” said that it is “young people, largely from diverse inner-city neighborhoods” who have “made sneakers what they are today.” These original sneak er aficionados continue to have a major impact on the industry today, she added. Sneaker culture is also deeply intertwined with sports culture -- especially following the launch of Michael Jordan’s 1985 Air Jordan sneakers, which Donovan called “the first and most collect ible sneaker.”

”It was the iconic sneakers of the early Jordan era that slowly permeated mainstream and pop culture, creating a breed of new collectors: sneakerheads.”

industry How collecting sneakers became a multi-billion-dollar industry

Collectors have diversified in the years since, with Donovan seeing a growing number of millennials, who “are only just starting on their collecting journey,” join the more “serious and established collectors of sports history and fashion.”

Sneaker collector Ann Jacobe, who owns around 500 pairs (and insists that she wears even the most valuable ones), said she welcomes new interest from luxury investors and auction houses. The Filipina collector, who has “lost count” of how much money she has spent on sneakers, said it “elevates the consciousness that shoes can be treated like art.”

“It’s a great thing, as I hold sneakers in high regard much like a sculpture or a painting. And based on the prices of some pairs (at auc tion), it is definitely going that route,” she said, adding she would consider bid ding for sneakers at auction if they “resonate with me and bring me joy.”

While some collectors treat sneak ers purely as an investment, others like Jacobe don’t simply want to own coveted pairs -- they want to own the stories and lifestyles behind them, Morrison said. “People tend to devote themselves to values, or narratives, or themes that transcend individual brands,” he said, adding that sneakers can “make us feel connected to brands, people and cultural moments.”

Speaking about her buying hab its, Jacobe said, “Sometimes it’s how (a pair) make me swoon the first time I see them; sometimes it’s the story behind the sneakers and how it resonates with my values.”

If Air Jordans are among the most popular sneakers on the market, they also have one of the best-known stories. The result of a collaboration between Michael Jordan and Nike, the design famously flouted the NBA’s “51% rule” that stated footwear had to be predominantly white. Jordan nonetheless wore a red and black pair during a preseason game, helping them transcend fashion to represent a cultural moment. Nike later capitalized on the con troversy, reissuing the original Air Jordan 1s as the “banned” edition.

Clearly aware of sneakers’ cultural power, Nike has since collaborated with luxury fashion labels like Dior and Sacai, as well as non-sporting celebrities such as Travis Scott and somewhat unlikely brands like Ben & Jerry’s. Others have followed suit, from Adidas’ Marvel Aveng ers-themed sneakers to Balenciaga’s appeal to gamers via a partnership with PlayStation.

Touchstones of sneaker culture can be found throughout Jacobe’s 500pair collection, including the Yeezy Boost 350 Turtle Doves (“a classic from Kanye West’s rich sneaker story,” she said) and the Nike Dunk SB Reese Forbes (from what she called the early-2000s “craze” for Nike’s SB skate shoes). She spent nearly a year looking for a rare pair of Nike x Off-White sneakers from 2017, saying it was “like a self-declared holiday when I unboxed them.”

Remember when the NBA banned Michael Jordan’s sneakers?

The collector also seeks out shoes that pay homage to her home coun try. Her favorites include the Nike AF-1 Philippines, which feature the colors of the national flag, as well as a pair of Asics designed with Whang Od, the last traditional Fil ipina tattoo artist from the Kalinga tribe.

How collecting sneakers became a multi-billion-dollar industry

Changing attitudes

Not all collectors are moti vated by their love for sneak ers, however. As with art and property, shoes can represent both an investment and a way for collectors to “diversify their assets,” said Donovan, of Christie’s auction house.

“Limited edition iterations of classic styles ... have al ways been the pinnacle of the luxury secondary collecting market,” she said, adding: “Collectors seek out these col laborative works -- often re leased in limited quantities on the primary market -- on the secondary market at premium prices.

Resale sites such as StockX, which tracks sneakers’ re al-time value and the latest sales like Wall Street stocks, has made it easier for collec tors to treat rare, expensive sneakers like commodities.

And getting hold of new limit ed-edition designs is, increas ingly, big business. Collectors might once have queued up outside stores for the latest “drop,” but many of today’s resellers instead turn to on line “botting” -- using soft ware that automatically buys up stock the moment a new collection goes online. For brands that would rather sell to sneakerheads than bots, it’s “an eternal arms race,” Morri son said.

‘I’ve spent almost all my con cert earnings on art’: Pop star Jay Chou’s collecting obsession

If savvy resellers pay their cards right, they could make tens of thousands of dollars flipping deadstock. StockX said that the Jordan 1 Retro High Dior collaboration was the most expensive sneaker release of 2020, selling for $2,000 but fetching $11,000 online via a Sotheby’s auction. Only 8,500 pairs of the sneak ers were ever made -- and they were launched on Air Jordan’s 35th anniversary, making for a perfect trifecta of rarity, luxu ry collaboration and historic moment. Today, the highest bid for a pair on StockX is over $12,600.

“There are many factors why some may be more expensive than others, including how rare it is, has it been worn by a celebrity or if it was a hyped collaboration,” Morrison said. “But in general, it comes down to supply and demand -- the fewer that are available, the more compelling or resonant the product is, and the more they’ll cost to obtain.” But regardless of whether collec tors are buying for pleasure or profit, all are looking for sneakers that speak to the culture of their day, Morrison said. “They’re more than just something that goes on your feet -- they’re a canvas that serve as a means of self-ex pression, whether you’re a col lector or wearing them right out of the box.”

How collecting sneakers became a multi-billion-dollar industry

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Sam nestium litatiume es ant ut et ea quod qui ut exceper umquat rent aut autem fugia es autam ulparit iur most earum cori conseque ped ut vent dolupta eum latium is porion pelluptatis exerum cumque doluptatiae omnit venem. Te volor as et et a in pe consend elictaqui dus excea con estissi acita ea as aut quam qui a con culloriam qui dolenim illent idi corenihilis res molesequae nos endis rerum dunt et aute non est, ulluptat. Nobisque dempos ipiendicil ea quae. Xerum es enisti nessimilitae qui blabor molorectaes aut quo bere nus qui inimper iorpore nes qua tur, que dolore eostiusae repe nitia volorro molessed quiae volendaest unt, sitaqui dusant.

Sum quidemo que veliciist, num quia nullab idenessitas reictur? Er chilit laut fugiaec aborum quossun to expedip icimi, quiant fugia qui volorere es adioribus exceribearum venet quis pos quo ipidi illaborunt velit re volorep rature enecte nulliq uid ut aut venisintem sandionet qui

Sam nestium litatiume es ant ut et ea quod qui ut exceper umquat rent aut autem fugia es autam ulparit iur most earum cori conseque ped ut vent dolupta eum latium is porion pelluptatis exerum cumque doluptatiae omnit venem. Te volor as et et a in pe consend elictaqui dus excea con estissi acita ea as aut quam qui a con culloriam qui dolenim illent idi corenihilis res molesequae nos endis rerum dunt et aute non est, ulluptat. Nobisque dempos ipiendicil ea quae. Xerum es enisti nessimilitae qui blabor molorectaes aut quo bere nus qui inimper iorpore nes qua tur, que dolore eostiusae repe nitia volorro molessed quiae volendaest unt, sitaqui dusant. Sum quidemo que veliciist, num quia nullab idenessitas reictur? Er chilit laut fugiaec aborum quossun to expedip icimi, quiant fugia qui volorere es adioribus exceribearum venet quis pos quo ipidi illaborunt velit re volorep rature enecte nulliq uid ut aut venisintem sandionet qui

What your sneakers say about you

“Sneakers became style items and statements of identity at the end of the 70s, really,” Salazar tells BBC Culture. “It was a culmination of basketball (or football in the UK), style and youth culture that came together to form the foundations of what we now understand as sneaker culture.

“Subsequently there are a number of events that cumulatively build on the popularity and status of sneak

There have always been powerfully opposing forces at play here, and they’re also rooted in youth culture: the urge to stand out, versus the need to belong (and swerve fashion mis-steps). At Sneakers Unboxed,

I spot an immaculately cased set of Adidas all-white three-stripe Adicolor shoes (1983), designed as a “blank canvas” for personal custo misation.

It makes me recall the stress around

(we’d have never used the US term “sneakers”); keen to be accepted, she wrote “NIKE” in ballpoint capital letters on the sides – and she was bullied even more mercilessly after that.

ers: Run DMC being endorsed by Adidas (the first non-sports en dorsement); the first reissuing of Nike Air Force 1s by three Balti more retailers due to popular de mand by customers; and, of course, Nike’s endorsement of young North Carolina rookie Michael Jordan –all in the mid-80s. This continues throughout the 90s before [the sneakers] get truly picked up by the big brands and resold as limited editions and collaborations, ulti mately manufacturing exclusivity and desire.”

wearing the “right” sneaker brands at my own schools in the late-80s and 90s. When I lived in Saudi Arabia, there was a peculiar vogue for pastel LA Gear shoes with crisscross laces; when I moved back to South London, the footwear pres sure intensified. I was heckled for wearing “foreign” (unrecognisable) shoes. Another girl at my second ary school was mocked for wearing plain non-branded trainers

When I think of my school mate’s trainers now, her DIY branding actually seems bril liant, yet filled with pathos. It also long predated the an ti-cool artistry of Edmond Looi’s customised Adidas IKEA Ultraboost shoes (also displayed at Sneakers Un boxed) or the 2021 Tik Tok trend for simply-customisable “$15 Walmart sneakers”, as viewed on various viral dance clips.

What your sneakers say about you

I never belonged to a sports team or style tribe (Sneakers Unboxed highlights many fascinating examples, from British football “casuals” to Japanese collectors and Mexican “Cholombianos”, who combine sneakers with sacred iconography); pop culture shaped my sneaker choices. As a kid, I was drawn towards Con verse All-Stars because of their association with multi-genre musicians, as well as their co lourful range (the brand’s ear ly-20th-Century founder Chuck Taylor set the tone with both his basketball skills and marketing prowess). There’s a seemingly infinite playlist of sneaker-in spired songs; US rap dominates, as showcased in Complex mag azine’s 2013 feature, “The 50 Greatest Sneaker References in Hip Hop History” (including Nas, A$AP Rocky, Jay-Z, and ob viously Run DMC), but French hip-hop crews also name-drop footwear, on moody tracks such as AirMax (2011) by L’Uzine from the outskirts of Paris.

Certain sneaker songs defy street cred; on the country tune A Pair of Old Sneakers (1980), Tammy Wynette and George Jones lament a fad ed romance (“worn out an’ comin’ unglued”). More recently, the offbeat 2014 Mandarin-lan guage track My Skateboard Shoes (translated lyr ics: “I felt a force moving my feet/ With my skate board shoes, I’m not afraid of the night”) scored brief viral success for its singer, Pang mailang. Elsewhere, shoes summon escapist magic in K-pop star Ha Sung-woon’s Sneakers (2021); in the video, he unboxes a pair of All-Stars that beautifully match his pink hair.

While pop culture connects sneakers with the international masses, an increasing focus on ultra-limited runs and luxury brands (such as Kanye West’s extravagantly-priced Yeezy line for Balenciaga) also transforms them into aspirational and untouchable items. Nowadays, seemingly every pop culture event is heralded with rare-edi tion sneakers – for instance, the Hacienda/Factory shoes to mark the seminal Manchester club’s 25th anniversary (2007, 250 pairs), designed by Peter Saville, architect Ben Kelly and bassist Peter Hook for Y-3 (Yohji Yama moto/Adidas fashion collab).

Lil Nas X’s aforementioned “Satan Shoes” instantly became the stuff of legend: a limited edition run of 666 pairs of dev ilishly modified Nike Air Max 97s (reportedly with a drop of human blood in the sole) by art collective MSCHF, they prompt ed a lawsuit from the sportswear brand. Sneakers Unboxed dis plays MSCHF’s earlier “Jesus Shoes” model, containing “holy water” in the sole.

What your sneakers say about you

Fuelling the mystique

Sneaker culture has appeared onscreen in feature documen taries including the star-stud ded Just for Kicks (2005), but fictional movies also fuel its mystique. When martial arts legend Bruce Lee wore Onit suka Tiger sneakers in the early-70s, he kick-started the Japanese brand’s cult appeal; Uma Thurman’s costume homage in Quentin Taran tino’s Kill Bill Vol.1 (2003) would prove influential in its own right. A brilliant promo poster for Aliens (1986) de clared: “REEBOK preview a shoe that you won’t see for 150 years”, with Sigourney Weav er’s sci-fi heroine wearing lace less “Alien Stomper” sneakers, designed by Tuan Lee (to a brief dictated by the film’s climactic scenes); fans would actually only need to wait 30 years for special-edition Alien Stompers – though the initial 2016 release bizarrely omitted women’s sizes.

In Back to the Future II (1989), Michael J Fox’s time-travelling hero wears hi-tech self-lacing Nike Mags; a 2016 edition of these sneakers is currently listed at £198,928 on resell site StockX. Space Jam (1996) had NBA high-flier and sneaker inspira tion Michael Jordan hitting the court alongside Looney Tunes cartoon characters; LeBron James stars in 2021 sequel Space Jam: A New Legacy, which also yields a new gen of Nike tie-in shoes.

An intense level of detail makes certain sneaker designs seem like intricate delicacies; Chris Hill, Reebok’s senior manager of pop culture and streetwear collab orations, describes the “Classic Leather” series of Ghostbusters sneakers on the brand’s blog (October 2020): “People dress up in the [Ghostbusters] suits all the time, so this is sort of the shoe version of that… On the outsole, one of them has a glow-in-thedark green spot like you stepped in slime. Then there’s a little hit of the yellow and black hazard stripe around the heel to spice it up a bit.”

Meanwhile, contemporary art immortalises sneakers as ob jects of desire – from German photographer Andreas Gursky’s vast-scale landscapes of Nike collections, to British artist Reu ben Dangoor’s Holy Trainerty paintings.

Sneakerheads span the cradle to the grave: brands minia turise their iconic designs as “baby cot booties”; while Accra-based coffin artist Paa Joe has crafted bright bespoke Air Jordan-shaped funeral cas kets. Specialist apps track the giddying rate of new releases, while the impact of consump tion raises questions in the modern world (Sneakers Un boxed also looks at ethical and sustainable production).

Sneakers somehow remain all-encompassing, yet ex clusionary. ”There is a term increasingly used in sneaker culture that describes this perfectly: sneaker privilege,” says Salazar. “This privilege isn’t only to do with how rich you are, but also your own status within the industry. Online raffles should have made it more democratic, but there’s a big debate around people designing bots to hack the raffles and some sneakers not being fully distributed, so it is often still about who you know. However, if you are able to see through the ‘hype’ and aren’t in it to make money off reselling limited editions, there are a lot of interesting sneakers out there for every taste and identity. But it is definitely a very ‘coded’ world, where people judge you from your feet up.”

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Fly Kickz Magazine November 17, 2022

By: Valeria Toro