Recently, I walked by 47 Howard Street. They turned Stadium Goods into a sustainable home goods spot. A lot of memories there, a lot of views too.
Store owners, the sneaker talking heads, they’re all saying the same thing: sneakers are dead. What happened to the game I love?
Yeah, it’s not the same as it was back in that 2019 to 2022 era. They were buying Panda Dunks and slurping Stanley Cups. Yeezy was feeding families in 2021, with 83 releases alone that year. We even had the Jordan 1s with the Skittles colorways. The mid was selling. Yeah, I overpaid and I overspent, but the overcorrection is over.
But let’s look at the past six weeks. Orchard Street didn’t look dead when the youth was being freed. And the Victor Victor release, they had to shut St. Nicholas down. Hype still exists, it’s just a little different than it was back then.
But let’s talk about another factor. Parity in the market, the Nike stock is down. Listen, I’m not Jim Cramer and this isn’t Mad Money, but there’s healthy competition going on. You can’t walk past Fanelli without seeing a Salomon XT-6. What about On? They got the soccer dads, Zendaya, and Ben Shelton. Asics turned mesh runners for dads into popular playground sneakers for the kids. And those are all GRs, by the way. I’m having a good time with the GRs.
So before we say sneakers are over, and you start selling your collection, maybe say sneakers have changed. Listen, the word “cyclical”? It exists for a reason. So maybe we get back to the basics. Going in a store and finding some GRs that you like. Or occasionally hunting that rare sneaker that you can’t get—Bleu Burnham New Balance 991s, I’m looking at you.
It’s easy for someone in my position to say all this. I totally get it. But they were complaining they couldn’t get sneakers back then. Now they’re complaining that you can get sneakers?
Listen, I complain a lot. But sneakers dead? Never that.
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