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When I came into the office this morning, I had a package waiting for me from footwear designer John Geiger. It was a pair of his 004 sneakers that contained a message, handwritten by Geiger, on the box top that read: “Welty, I love you bud! But……this is the SOTY!!”
I’ve known John for about a decade now. I did the first in-depth interview with him in 2015, fresh off his breakup with longtime friend Darrelle Revis and his first venture into sneakers with the Misplaced Checks. We had him on Full Size Run twice and the Complex Sneakers Show once. So I knew it was just friendly ribbing. This year at ComplexCon, he took out ads in Las Vegas, questioning whether or not his sneaker was the sneaker of the year. A lot of his fans and supporters online felt that the shoe should be a top-10 sneaker of the year, if not the sneaker of the year. And if they feel that way, they’re more than entitled to that opinion.
I don’t feel that way, and that’s no slight to Geiger or his shoe. But, in a microcosm, that’s part of the fun—and the problem—with putting together a top-10 sneakers of the year list. Complex does this every year, and the results can be controversial. There’s never a complete consensus opinion on the shoes. And you know what? That’s OK.
Complex’s list isn’t the same as Sneaker News’ list isn’t the same as Nice Kicks’ list isn’t the same as Hypebeast’s list isn’t the same as GQ’s list isn’t the same as Esquire’s list isn’t the same as a sneaker Twitter personality’s list isn’t the same as my personal list.
That’s the beauty of it. Sneakers are art to most of us who collect them. And for different reasons, certain shoes resonate more than others. Maybe Action Bronson is your favorite internet personality. Maybe Nigel Sylvester’s storyline hits home for you. Maybe Jae Tips’ come-up inspires you. Maybe the simplicity of JJJJound’s design ethos is your whole shabang. Maybe a retro Air Jordan reminds you of your childhood. Maybe Grace Wales Bonner’s Adidas work made you fall in love with Sambas. Maybe Travis Scott is the reason you wake up every morning.
For me, I’m crazy about the CP Company x Adidas Manchester SPZL. It’s easily a top 3 sneaker of the year for me. But I also don’t expect it to be on any of these lists and wouldn’t advocate for it on the Complex lists I work on, and that’s totally OK with me. I never even brought it up when we put together our best sneakers of the year for ComplexCon. Same goes for the the Nordstrom x Sauconys designed by Alex Dymond.
Sneakers, and especially limited-edition ones, are designed and marketed to pull at our heart strings. We feel an emotional connection to them. It’s just rubber and leather, but they make people want to die on a hill for them. If you tell a Salehe Bembury fan that one of his New Balances isn’t your cup of tea, expect hell in exchange. The same can be said for Ronnie Fieg and Kith, or Nina Chanel Abney, Aimé Leon Dore, or Hidden NY.
There are more sneaker releases than ever these days. There are often more than 10 in a weekend. Now imagine taking that many cool shoes over the course of a year and whittling them down to 10. And you’re not the only person making the list. Put eight different people in a room, all of whom love different shoes and have different backgrounds, and have them argue about the list and see how it goes.
This isn’t a defense of Complex’s sneaker of the year list. I have nothing to apologize for. Even if people want to say everything under the sun about the list and the people who make it.
It just strikes me as odd that people genuinely believe that there are conspiracies behind these choices, rather than simply opinions from a group of people who see sneakers differently from each other.
Try it sometime. Don’t just make your own top 10 sneaker of the year lists. Sit down with five people and see how the list comes out and how much it differs from your personal one. It’s an exercise in coming to compromise rather than forcing your taste on others.
I’ve never sat in a meeting where someone said, “We gotta have nine Nikes on this list.” Or, “We need a Kith, Concepts, or A Ma Maniere shoe on the list.” Sorry, conspiracy theorists.
All of that aside, the tough part about pleasing everyone with a list of the 10 best shoes is that on today’s internet we all tend to live in our own echo chambers or bubbles. Something might be the biggest thing ever to you and your group of friends. Other people may have never heard of it. And you can’t believe it, because it’s all over your timeline. So it leads people to believe that every shoe that they like is a top-five shoe this year, if not top-three.
I heard people say this with the Hidden NY x ASICS Gel-NYCs. If you like that shoe, great. And ASICS had a huge year. But I don’t think there’s any world where that’s one of the most undeniable, biggest sneakers this year. The shoe they dropped at ComplexCon is even better, and I still don’t think that’s a top shoe of the year. It’s a cool-looking shoe. I’d wear them often. But there’s not much that really pushes it over the top in terms of storytelling or collaboration innovation.
And if you don’t rank a shoe in the top five, or even the top 10, that doesn’t mean that you hate it. I’ve heard people talk about 20 different sneakers this year that were either “definitely sneaker of the year” or “that’s a top-three shoe.” How can that be true? It’s mathematically impossible. It’s like 8-4 college football teams wondering why they’re not ranked in the top five. Your team doesn’t suck and you should be happy about your season, but you’re not making it to the College Football Playoff, and that’s OK.
With that said, ranking the shoes at the end of the year should be fun, a celebration of what came out this year. There’s so much to take into consideration. What were the biggest shoes this year on a mainstream level, like an Air Jordan 4 “Bred Reimagined”? Which sneakers had a pop-cultural breakthrough? Think of a “Chunky Dunky” Nike SB Dunk. Which were groundbreaking in performance and marketing, like the Adidas AE1? And what sneakers were just cool, like a Kids of Immigrants x Nike Air Max Sunder or a Jae Tips x Saucony ProGrid Omni 9, which were impactful to the community at large.
I get why people get upset if they see a list and don’t see their favorite shoe on it, or personally feel the list is lacking. I’ve felt that way before, too. When GQ dropped a best New Balance sneakers of all time list in 2023 and the list sucked, I complained about it, but then also went and put together a list of the best New Balance sneakers that didn’t suck and called it a day.
If you don’t like a list, make your own. We’re not saying Complex is the sole authority when it comes to these lists—we create them partly to spark discussion. So make a YouTube video. Make a Medium post. Post it on X. Make a video for Instagram. Put it out there. Let the world know what you thought the 10 best were this year. Heck, drop your top 10 in the comments and then we can all see and compare. Saying “this list sucks” and not dropping actual criticism doesn’t do the space any good. If you want to start a discussion, start an actual discussion.
My personal number one shoe of the year was the Action Bronson x New Balance 1906R. Never once did I try to make it the number one shoe on our list or say it needs to be in the top five or three just because I like it a lot. I can separate my personal opinions from reality.
When you decide to rank something, there will always be opinions and feedback. That’s the point of making a list: to create engagement. There’s never evil or malice behind it. It’s just fun. The same should go for how we interact with the lists. The more we all amplify our opinions on sneakers, the bigger the space gets and the more we will all have opportunities in this thing we love. Just think about it for a second.
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