This site features piece’s on sport sneakers from time to time…..
And YES….
Their value has climbed…..
This piece on sneakers , or ‘kicks’ come’s from the NY Times…..
The piece also addresses the world those’ pain in the ass’….’Bots’
For most of the 20th century, sneakers were considered little more than utilitarian footwear for sports. But that changed dramatically in the 1980s, in large part because of Nike’s Air Jordan. The original Jordans came out in red, black and white — so defiantly different from other sneakers at the time that the National Basketball Association fined Michael Jordan for breaking its “uniformity of uniform rule.”
The original Jordans and subsequent models ushered in a new era. Sneakers were no longer bland shoes with extra padding and rubber soles; they were fashion accessories and expressions of identity. It wasn’t long before sneakers became a collector’s item starting in the early 2000s when Nike released Dunks, originally a basketball shoe, in limited quantities at independent skateboarding shops, such as FTC in San Francisco and Uprise in Chicago.
Nike often collaborated with skaters, designers and streetwear brands such as Supreme, which elevated the SB (for skateboarding) Dunks into a status symbol. Each release had a unique look, back story and catchy nickname that made the shoe feel more exclusive. For example, the so-called Tiffany dunksfeatured a turquoise color that resembled the boxes of the famed jeweler.
Over the last decade, most major sneaker brands have turned to high-profile collaborations. Kanye West worked with Nike and Adidas on realizing his vision for Yeezys. Nike teamed with Virgil Abloh’s Off-White to put a new spin on popular shoes from the company’s archives. Nike also tapped the design sense of Travis Scott for more than a dozen pairs of shoes since 2017.
These days, there are highly anticipated drops almost every weekend. It is not unusual to see a handful of big releases — usually coming from Nike’s SNKRS app — in a week. In online discussion forums, every new release is dissected like a company going through an initial public offering.
“It’s more about how much would you make off those shoes versus what would you do in those shoes,” said Nick Engvall, a footwear consultant and founder of Sneaker History. “We’re becoming flooded with the idea that sneakers are a commodity and that we should always be thinking about the dollar amount.”
StockX, a popular sneaker marketplace, found that most hyped releases follow a similar pattern: the “Swoosh Curve,” named for Nike’s trademark logo. When a new shoe is announced, its resale estimate is high but decreases steadily as the release date nears. The price hits a low when sales begin, then climbs steadily until it plateaus and completes the curve.
Weekly Average Price
Jan. 2018 – August 2021
