It’s March the 6th. Your alarm is set for 9:00AM, quite an early time for a Saturday but today isn’t a normal weekend. How could you potentially miss the chance of getting a pair of Air Jordan 1 in University Blue? Even though, deep down you already know that your race in beating the checkout is a sure defeat. Everyone owns a pair, so why can’t you? Of course, you could look for a pair being sold on StockX at exactly 9:30AM for double the retail price, but, is it really worth it?

The turning point of this tale is when Michael Jordan was fined $5000 for wearing the notorious black and red Air Jordan 1 and then went to win Rookie of the Year. The shoes, first selling for $65, were completely sold out.

It was estimated by Cowen Equity Research that the footwear market is already worth $100 billion, turning the collectible into an investible.

At the beginning, there were collectors who were well-versed in the history of every pair on sneakers they owned, who studied the market, and could tell you the value of each pair they owned.

A whole culture surrounding it began to grow around what started as an insiders club, and today, platforms such as Complex, HYPEBEAST, and Highsnobiety receive from 5 to 15 million web visitors each month. A secondary market grew over the years, as shoes like Dunks and AF1s became a closet staple endorsed by rappers and celebrities.

Forget the under $100 price tag, getting your hands on the latest release has become very much like winning the lottery.

The sneaker resale market is valued at around $6 billion and with chances of it doubling in size during the next five years. This trend is also the result of brands keeping supply below demand to make these sneakers more and more unattainable, which clearly shows that companies aren’t oblivious to what happens to their most hyped releases, and certainly enjoy the clout they receive each time. In fact, it’s quite clear that brands look up to secondary marketplaces to market their products.

Image via @hartcopy, Air Jordan 1 Freeze Out in collaboration with Trophy Room.

Just recently, Nike VP Ann Hebert resigned from her position after Businessweek covered the $600k a month worth reselling business of her son, 18-years-old Joe Hebert. A business financed by the credit card of his mother nonetheless, who also happened to be the supervisor for the SNKRS App in North America. Needless to say, this was a clear sign of Nike’s complicity in the not-so-ethical reselling market fuelled by what Wall Street would call insider trading.

Yet, Nike feels little pressure to be more fair and transparent when its profits are assured and no scandal is going to stop its consumers from rushing to buy the next high-profile release.

The February drop of the Air Jordan 1 also caused scandal due to the backdooring action of store owner Marcus Jordan, son of Michael, who sold stashes of the collaborations to his friends weeks before it was officially released.

When it comes to pieces of fashion that are meant to be used daily such as sneakers, there are two main concerns: one lies in the unhinged consumerist ideology behind overly hyped pieces, a tale as old as time, and the other is focused on the environmental effect shoes can have when they are only treated as a commodity that cannot last for more than a season, or worse, a commodity acceptable only until the next drop.

The constant newness of the sneaker drop model is promoting overconsumption at its finest. What once was an instance that happened maybe twice a month, has now turned into a weekly occurrence.

“Sneaker culture is very much the opposite of sustainability since it is built around repetitive consumption and the gamification of shopping rather than the utility of the product. It’s all about beating the checkout, having a plug or knowing someone who can get the sneakers for you. Demand is manipulated and manufactured”

— Alec Leach, founder of Future Dust

Here stands the difference between consumerism and materialism. Both are based on owning a product, yet while materialism relies on buying pieces meant to last for the long run, which express the personal style of an individual who is part of a larger group (and therefore bound to feel the influence – or maybe the pressure- of what is supposed to be a shared taste), consumerism doesn’t seem to have any point to reach in its continuous race with trends. One second you’re in, the next one you’re not.

Footwear has an inherently short life due to its use, and is therefore more inclined to end up in landfills, yet the footwear industry is at least a decade behind than the rest of the fashion industry in terms environmental practices and transparency, let alone the sweatshop-like conditions their workers are left in. The footwear industry might have no had its Rana Plaza moment, but is the death of a thousand the only token for any kind of change?

Of course, once a product is bought it becomes the new owner’s responsibility to deal with, however brands should be expected to be held accountable for the impact they have on a larger scale. But then again, as part of a capitalist economy, a company’s only concern is the profit it can make, regardless of how much they try to push their CSR propaganda on consumers. Even so, for one reason or another it seems that irresponsible business practices aren’t big enough of an incentive for consumers stop buying into a brand.

To think that it’s almost impossible to recycle a pair of sneakers due to their plastic components attached together by chemical adhesive, and let alone try to repair them, the footwear sector — churning out 66 million shoes every day — is currently an almost entirely unregulated market, so legislative action could be one route.

Otherwise brands could adopt a made-to-order model just like American Accessories Designer of the Year 2020 winner Telfar Clemens has been doing, in order to produce the right quantity requested by his consumers since brands usually know six months to a year prior what products they will be releasing. Telfar has proved it to also be a great strategy to prevent resellers and bots from proliferating, yet it didn’t simmer down the hype around the latest IT bag at all.

In presenting this strategy, the brand has shown that there was never the intention to create exclusiveness with its products (Telfar’s mantra is after all “Not for you. For Everyone”), but rather to avoid the gamification of the shopping experience thanks to affordable products, both in terms of price tags and quantity.

Unfortunately, it’s not a given that bigger and more commercially known brands would ever nurture any kind of interest in a business strategy that could benefit not only them, but also all of their stakeholders.

Is The Bigger The Swoosh The Better?

The turning point of this tale is when Michael Jordan was fined $5000 for wearing the notorious black and red Air Jordan 1 and then went to win Rookie of the Year. The shoes, first selling for $65, were completely sold out.

It was estimated by Cowen Equity Research that the footwear market is already worth $100 billion, turning the collectible into an investible.

At the beginning, there were collectors who were well-versed in the history of every pair on sneakers they owned, who studied the market, and could tell you the value of each pair they owned.

Forget the under $100 price tag, getting your hands on the latest release has become very much like winning the lottery.

Yet, Nike feels little pressure to be more fair and transparent when its profits are assured and no scandal is going to stop its consumers from rushing to buy the next high-profile release.

The February drop of the Air Jordan 1 also caused scandal due to the backdooring action of store owner Marcus Jordan, son of Michael, who sold stashes of the collaborations to his friends weeks before it was officially released.

The constant newness of the sneaker drop model is promoting overconsumption at its finest. What once was an instance that happened maybe twice a month, has now turned into a weekly occurrence.

Unfortunately, it’s not a given that bigger and more commercially known brands would ever nurture any kind of interest in a business strategy that could benefit not only them, but also all of their stakeholders.