BY JAWEED KALEEM DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Jason Hall could go two months without wearing the same pair of shoes. He has Dunks for skateboarding, Air Jordans and Air Force Ones for basketball and Air Max Trainers, to name a few -- all that he'll wear casually, but carefully. He's worn many only once or twice.
They come in combinations of gold and green and pink and brown, with laces that are neon green and bright yellow.
He's not just somebody with a lot of shoes. And he doesn't just buy any pair. They have to be special. And rare, like his Lucky Dunks, which could sell for $700 online. And his Cinder Bisons, which he says could go at $500.
Ever since the athletic shoe market exploded in the mid-1980s with releases like the Air Jordan, people have been collecting sneakers.
But now it's grown to the point that metro Detroit has a store dedicated to limited edition, collectible shoes. Rachel Carroll's Royal Oak store, Burned Rubber, is projected to sell a half-million dollars in shoes before its one-year anniversary in October. Sixty percent of her customers are collectors.
In cities like Los Angeles and New York, there are sneaker exhibitions. This summer marked the debut of ESPN2's "It's the Shoes" (12:30 a.m. Tuesdays), hosted by sneaker guru Bobbito Garcia that takes viewers into the shoe collections of celebrities like basketball player Allen Iverson and hip-hop star Nelly -- sneaker culture is inseparable from sports and rap culture.
There are even books on the topic. One released this year is "Sneakers: The Complete Collectors' Guide" (Thames & Hudson, $29.95), written by Unorthodox Styles, a British group that produced http://www.crookedtongues.com/, a collecting Web site.
Hall says he buys about seven pairs a month, some of which he finds during the four hours a day he spends on Web sites like eBay and NikeTalk, an online discussion board. Most of the shoes he buys originally retailed for around $125, although he refuses to reveal how much he's paid for his shoes, most of which he bought in stores.
Some people would call Hall a sneakerhead. Others could be more jarring and say he's a sneakerfreak.
"I'm just a guy who loves shoes," says the 31-year-old from Detroit. During the day, he's an associate director at WDIV-TV (Channel 4).
He loves the look, the design, the colors, the commercials, the celebrity endorsements, even the smell. "There are sneakers I still smell that I've never worn," he says. A few years ago, he spent six months training himself to recognize shoe models by their scent, but "never really got it down."
When Hall hangs out with his friends, the conversation always turns to shoes. His belt has a silver buckle that reads "MWKC" -- Midwest Kick Collectors, his sneaker-loving posse.
This loose group of friends includes Detroiters Jay Wilkins, 34, and Donavan Allen, 25.
Wilkins, who occasionally DJs, owns 60 pairs that he says are worth at least $3,000. But as he and his friends point out, a shoe is worth as much as somebody will pay for it. One of his best pairs is the Nike Paris Dunk, a 2004 skateboarding shoe that he says could go for $1,800. It's worth so much because only 200 pairs exist.
Allen works at the Detroit Science Center and is the "self-crowned king of discount," he says. Of his 75 pairs, he's gotten most for less than $30. He loves vintage sneakers, which, in an industry so young, can mean a pair just 10 years old. He says he spends "endless hours" online looking for shoes. That's how he scored an original, unworn pair of 1982 Nike Dashers. The price? $17. He got his 1987 Nike Delta Forces the same way. They were $28.
The seller "had no clue what they were," he says about getting vintage kicks so cheap. If he sold the shoes now, "they could go for anything," Allen says. Hall says he has seen pairs like these selling for up to $300 online.
These three don't just buy for themselves, but look out for each other.
"We're looking at our own sizes, we're looking at our friends' sizes," says Allen, who will immediately call his buddies if he finds a connection to score the latest release. "It's all about networking." Since he seriously took up collecting in 1998, Allen has known where to find the rarest and newest shoes with connections to Web sellers and Detroit businesses.
And it's not limited to that. Hall has gone to Chicago, Toronto, Los Angeles and San Francisco specifically to look for shoes. In comparison, Detroit's shoe market is small, he says. But it's not uncommon to hop the border to Windsor -- stores there get special Canadian releases. When he's looking for a shoe, he usually visits about 15 stores. He won't say which, though; if he did he wouldn't be able to find the hottest shoes anymore -- they'd all sell out.
Collecting "at times can be an addiction," Hall says. Three years ago, during the height of his obsession, he spent up to $400 a week on shoes. "I would literally get my paycheck, go cash it on my lunch break, run to Eastland Mall, and buy something before I had to be back from lunch," he says.
He collects Nikes almost exclusively now, as do his friends. But he started out buying Adidas. And he still owns some pairs of New Balance.
Shoestore owner Carroll says collectors generally focus on Nikes. The company targets them with technologically advanced, limited edition and well-marketed shoes, she says. The corporation has capitalized upon celebrity endorsements and rereleases of retro styles. And it doesn't hurt that collectors are brand loyal.
The NBA fined Michael Jordan up to $5,000 a game when he first started wearing the red and black Nike Air Jordans in 1985. Today, there are 20 different models of the shoe and a handful of modern rereleases. Originals Air Jordan Ones can fetch $1,000 online.
The Midwest Kick Collectors don't re-sell their shoes, but Hall knows what he'll do when the game ends.
"When I decide that it's all over, I'm just going to post them all on eBay," he says. With the money, "I'll put a down payment on a Mercedes."
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