The launch of a new collection to mark the 35th anniversary of the iconic adidas Superstar shoe has sparked a fresh wave of sneakermania. Jon Perks looks into the past, present and future of sports footwear culture.
Over the past few weeks observant passers-by will have noted an early morning queue forming outside specialist footwear store size? in Lower Temple Street, Birmingham [England].
The question isn't who have they been waiting for, but what.
Launched last month, the adidas Superstar 35 collection marks the anniversary of one of the world's most iconic shoes that first went on sale in 1970 - stars of music, art and fashion invited by the brand to create the new limited edition range of 35 different Superstar shoes.
With each delivery comes another line of would-be buyers desperate to get their hands on a pair of the shoes that have been changing hands for hundreds of pounds on eBay: "In terms of oneoff trainers it's been the most popular shoe in the three years we've been open," says Dan Pullen, manager at size? "When we get a delivery they're all gone pretty much in a day, hours even."
With just 4,000 pairs of the Expression range and 5,000 of the Musician range available worldwide, the adidas Superstar 35 are the footwear equivalent of hot cakes - but it's only a small fraction of a growing sneaker culture in which serious collectors will pay hundreds, even thousands of pounds for a pair of shoes, often buying as many as three, five or ten pairs of the same shoe at one time.
The Collector
They say you can tell a lot about a man by his shoes.
That's never truer than in the case of Rob Scarlett.
Rob only owns two pairs of 'proper shoes' - one for a funeral, one for a wedding - but his sneaker collection currently totals '1740-something' pairs... and counting.
That's the equivalent of buying a pair every fortnight for 67 years - except Robert's only been collecting since 1982 - an average rate of six pairs a month.
Since kicking off (no pun intended) with a pair of adidas Allasio at the age of nine, the 32-year-old from Solihull has built up a mammoth collection, the sheer size meaning he has to store the dozens of boxes at numerous locations, mostly relatives' houses.
"I've never seen them all together, I simply don't have the space," admits Rob.
"It all started without me realising I was collecting.
"What sparked it was breakdancing, just the whole street culture thing really, the graffiti and just the associations, the people I was with." After getting his pair of Allasio ("a cousin of the Trimm Trab"), Rob says he was then "going into a store and throwing down deposits on six or seven pairs at any one time, and continually doing that every week with pocket money and money I earned from breakdancing; once I'd got enough to get the pairs I'd go in and just walk out with an armful.
"Around 1983/84 I got my first pair of Diadora Borg Elites, and that's pretty much when I started to see them in a more serious way," says Rob.
"Instead of spending all my money on sweets I saved as much as I could, and instead of opting for an infinite amount of toys at Christmas, I'd have a couple but would always be saying to my mum and dad: 'can I have those trainers, can I get that Tacchini tracksuit...'"
Amazingly, Rob keeps no written record or catalogue of his sneaker stockpile - it's all in his head: "I know what I've got and if it's multiple pairs of the same shoe I know what colour-wise," he says.
"If I want to wear a certain pair of kicks then I'll just find the relevant box, get the shoe out; I know where certain ones are - it's just a question of keeping the ones I wear a lot at hand."
Given the size of his collection, you'd be forgiven for thinking Rob simply buys every new trainer that comes onto the market. Far from it: "I don't buy the latest shoe simply because it's the latest shoe - I just buy what I like," he states.
"If it's a vintage shoe I'll track it down, but if it's an up to date release it goes on the basis of what I like cosmetically - if I like the look of the shoe then I'll go for it, that's been the case since I was small."
While he may only buy shoes on the basis of their looks, Rob - who cites Puma Navratilovas, adidas Trimm Trabs and Micro Pacers amongst his favourites - still has an eye for a classic or collectible: "There's quite a few, but the one that I'm quite fond of is the Diadora Borg Elites, 1981 shoe," he says. "They come with their own printed signature on the shoe, but I also have a pair that was signed additionally by Borg himself, it kind of makes it that little bit special.
"I think the current value of a shoe like that to a collector would be around £1,200-£1,500," he adds, coolly.
"If it's something readily available I'll buy two, three pairs - one to wear, one to wear when that pair's gone and one just to keep on ice."
So what remains for someone who seems to own every pair of sneakers ever made?
Aside from currently tracking down two sets of vintage trainer from 1983 ("I can't name them because they're so obscure I'd rather not expand everyone else's interest into them"), Rob reveals he has two big ambitions; to write an autobiographical account of his collection, and to design his own shoe.
He certainly has enough prototypes to work with.
The Book
You know when a trend, movement or person has seeped into popular culture when a book is published on the subject.
Following on from Neal Heard's book of last year, Trainers, comes Sneakers: The Complete Collector's Guide, compiled and edited by creative agency Unorthodox Styles, who also worked on the adidas 35th anniversary and run sneaker-obsessive website Crooked Tongues.
Out in May, the book is an encyclopaedic guide looking at some of the key designs and brands in a market that shows no signs of slowing down.
"You've got a lot of guys who maybe worked in sports stores in the 80s, who obviously had access to cheap shoes and were basically taking stuff from end of lines, putting stuff away and they've become collectors," says Russ Williamson of Unorthodox Styles.
"I know a lot of guys in the States who try and get every single Jordan shoe," says Tim Easley of the Crooked Tongues website, which has built up a database of 47,000 subscribers in its five years.
"They buy like five-ten pairs of the ones they like, so they can keep them fresh for like the next ten years, so they don't have to go and buy extra pairs - a lot of them put them in display cabinets in their house.
"Generally nowadays people are just collecting anything that's limited," Tim adds.
"People don't seem to be that specific; people are buying stuff from JD Sports or Footlocker that's not the collectable stuff now but it's maybe gonna be quite collectable in five, ten years' time.
"That's the stuff the kids are buying and they're wearing every day and killing the shoes - so no-one will have them and all these guys who've been buying the limited stuff and keeping them in the bedroom will be all over the place!"
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