Junior Coloma, right, and Blake Ganac wait at the head of the line at Seattle's Niketown store for the $150 Air Jordan Retro 13 shoes to go on sale. (February 25, 2005, Joshua Trujillo/Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
By KRISTEN MILLARES BOLT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Blake Ganac will have waited outside of downtown Seattle's Niketown for more than 57 hours by the time he gets his hands on a pair of Nike's latest pair of sneakers -- the limited-edition Air Jordan Retro 13.
Rainier Valley resident Ganac, who already has more than a hundred pairs of sneakers, is at the front of a line of young men slumped in foldable nylon chairs along the sidewalk, languidly stretching out their Nike-clad feet.
"I am trying to buy all the shoes I couldn't afford when I was a kid," said Ganac, 18, a hip-hop artist who goes by the MC name Newsense. "It's a way for me to get my childhood back."
Very clever, Nike: Recycle old designs, this one a 1998 number that is now black and green. Send only 60 pairs of the $150 shoes to Seattle's Niketown, and scatter a few pairs in other shops. Watch the buzz grow before they go on sale at midnight tonight.
The Oregon-based shoe giant, which releases a couple of Air Jordan Retro styles per year, faced a lot of heat in the 1990s for marketing shoes that were too expensive for many teens.
The original Air Jordans were so coveted that some people were mugged for their footwear. Now, those shoes are being remarketed to the public as retro, hitting the market in extremely small quantities.
Representatives from Nike and its Jordan brand division were unavailable for comment and declined to say how many of the shoes had been sent to retailers nationwide.
"Nike has always created that iconic image with Michael Jordan," said Jennifer Black, of Jennifer Black & Associates, an analyst who covered Nike for 15 years. "They are trying to create a buzz around their brand."
It works -- Jahi Rankin, a 16-year-old junior on break from Renton High School, actually got his mom to wait overnight with him Wednesday.
Rankin owns 120 pairs of shoes, which he refuses to wear more than three times each ("creases make your shoes look bad"), and is the beneficiary of a unique deal with his mom: shoes for good grades.
Rankin's shoes, all in mint condition, could be worth a fortune on eBay, where the Retro 13's are already being auctioned for up to double their retail value of $150.
Asked by a reporter if Rankin and Ganac would consider selling their collections on the online auction site, the answer was a resounding no.
"I have to keep them -- they are so rare," said Rankin, who sounded vexed by the very idea of turning a profit with his beloved shoes.
"I'm not in this for the money. I'm in it for the love," agreed Ganac. "They don't look like much, but they are beautiful to us."
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