Shoe Nerds @ Supreme
street_muzik
3,919 Posts
Is there a new batch of Nike's out today or something? There's a line half way up Fairfax going to Supreme. I'm jealous. I just threw down $500 on my car this morning. No kicks for me. 
Comments
Collectors do some crazy shit. Like dudes who wait for record stores to open, get a life.
Most raers aren't impressive.
Record dudes don't let their presence be known until the doors are unlocked. They haunt the neighboring cafes beforehand, eyeball the door and curse to themselves when the clerk opens 5 minutes late.
but at least they were jordans. And at least they were legit looking IV's with the plastic wings and the pulltab. Never mind that they were the color of puke. With orange laces though they could look kinda fresh.
This supreme shit is just weird though, I have always felt that way about that shit. I dont even see the appeal.
you waited in line for those? Im saying.
Pretty sure they were GR terds.
STILL UGLY. fuck these urban lifestyle looking limited asian kids colorways. Give me some O.G. grapes or laneys. and i might even wait in line.
Don't knock the hustle.
- spidey
like dude, they are not all Japanese dude. they are philipino, chinese, and vietnamese too.
man, the LA weekly just blew up my local bar. fuck.
who's hustle? I can most definitely respect whoever is jerking these asian kids for millions with this urban boutique strategy. I cannot however, respect camping out on the sidewalk for a hoodie.
disconnected from the sidewalk
What ever makes people happy I guess?
"It's your world squirel, I'm just living in it"
no doubt. im not trying to stereotype asians or anything. It was just jokes. They are crazy for that ish in japan though.
Uh, no intended stereotyping on my part either Y'ALL. You know with my "line of asians" perspective.
I just peeped Bobbitto's ITS THE SHOES on ESPN2. He spoke w/ MR.Cartoon about his career, and these joints........
I'm no AIRFORCEONE nuthugger, but I can fuck w/ deez!!!
records are records...they contain music...sneakers are sneakers, they just contain feet...pick your poison!
damn, those are looking fresh right there. I could have copped em for like 160 a while back, but passed. I like those better than the other cartoon forces.
Shoes are addictive as hell too. They are way nerdier to collect than records though i feel.
Flight from Forced Reality
Words: Russ Bengston
Photo: Shane Nash
Before I get started, allow me to issue this statement: I still love sneakers. I really do. Some of what you read after this might indicate otherwise, but I assure you, it???s absolutely not true. To borrow and twist a phrase from Stuart Scott???don???t hate the game, hate the players.
I promise that I???ll get to sneakers shortly, but before I do, I???d like to talk a little about trading cards???bear with me. Sometime in the ???80s, the sports card industry changed. Companies saw that rarity could be valuable in and of itself (damn you, Honus Wagner), and the easiest way to capitalize on that was to produce limited editions of desirable cards. So instead of just different brands, you had mid-season ???traded??? sets, then cards with game-worn scraps of uniforms inserted, then gold prismatics and half-clear plastic cards that looked like security keys for high-tech corporate headquarters. Any prospect with a breath of hype had more rookie cards than older guys had cards, period. Some ended up being worth thousands, while others ended up lining hamster cages. Just ask the guy who bought 300 Danny Tartabull rookies.
A hobby gets started by enthusiasts, then it gets taken over by speculators. Cherished items become mere commodities. You see the problem here? Looking at something and seeing value in its rarity alone is missing the entire point. Which brings us to what I see as the biggest problem facing the sneaker market???forced rarity. To briefly go back to the cards, back in the day they got ragged. Kids brought them to school in their back pockets, traded them at recess, then accidentally put them in the wash. Cherished ones were even more likely to get dogged???you were more likely to show off Larry Bird than Uwe Blab. Cards were loved, not hoarded.
What I consider ???forced rarity??? is simply rarity for rarity???s sake; rarity by production instead of attrition. It???s cheating. Hundreds of thousands of pairs of the original Air Jordan???s were made, and the reason mint examples are worth so much now is that most pairs were worn and discarded???loved the way they were supposed to be loved. Forced rarity removes the coolest aspect of shoes: wearing them. It also allows companies to define what???s cool, rather than individuals. (For the record, just because only six of something were made doesn???t make it good.)
There also seems to be some confusion between ???rare??? and ???hard to find.??? Hard to find is a pair of original Nike Air Ships in mint condition. Rare is a pair of Denim Dunk SBs. There may be similar numbers of each shoe left in perfect shape, but that???s where the similarity ends. The Air Ship, a hightop that dropped in 1984 as the would-be successor to the Air Force 1 (it was also worn by Michael Jordan before the release of the Air Jordan), has no cachet, thus can still be had relatively cheaply, despite its rich history. The Denim Dunk, on the other hand, which was released just a few years ago???at $250???trades easily (and frequently) at $1,000-plus. 444 pairs were allegedly released. How many of those do you think are being worn? They???re status symbols, not shoes.
When I first read Bobbito Garcia???s Where???d You Get Those?, I was perplexed. As a kid growing up in suburban Long Island, my introduction to sneaker obsession was timed with his exit. For him, mass marketing of shoes was the beginning of the end. For me, it was merely the beginning. I needed the new Air Jordan???s every year, not just because they were dope, but because they were the new Air Jordan???s. I was buying into the mystique of Jordan himself. Each new shoe was connected with another new accomplishment. The fact that the shoes themselves were status symbols was secondary. But it was the beginning of a new era for sneakers. The game was no longer about individual expression, but fitting in.
Now it seems like everyone wants to have it both ways. New shoes and colorways get dropped every week, not every quarter. You can???t turn a corner in downtown New York City without bumping into a new sneaker boutique???or at least someone holding a bag from one. Kids know release dates like they used to know players??? stats. Vintage has gone nuts too, with eBay and various websites offering up virtually any style one might want to anybody with the right credit card (no digging required). Sneaker collecting has become a game of one-upsmanship???people posting photos of new shoes on internet message boards like they were their children. Wearing the latest ???rare??? pair is sacrilegious; having a collection of 100-plus pairs is the norm. They???re no longer sneakers, they???re investments. And thinking that way, kids dropped $420 on a green version of the hemp Dunk SB (420 pairs released worldwide on 4/20???get it?) and watched the price stay roughly the same. It???s no longer about buying what you like, it???s about buying what you think other people will like???or what other people won???t have. That???s not the game I grew to love.
I disagree, we're all nerds, no matter what the collectron.