birdofpassage: 05.06.2012 Sneaker Swap

Today I went to a sneaker-swap market bonanza by solemart. The idea was that you bring your best sneakers, vintage, limited edition, what have you, and swap with other sneaker-geeks and their collector goods or with retailers (like Nike, adidas, etc) if you see a shoe that they have that you like, you can trade yours in. I'm not a sneaker-geek, nor do I have a good pair of sneakers on hand, but I was just curious to see how things were going to go down.

There were a lot of people and even though I was three minutes late, I had to wait thirty minutes to get in. Everyone was wearing flashy footwear--showing off their best sneakers on their feet. When I walked towards the waiting line, I felt totally out of place and could feel the looks from people eyeing my feet and judging my mundane falling-apart, tearing-apart converses. You could hear people whispering to their friends, "Hey, look over there, that guy is wearing a pair of ---"

1. Sneaker Schnizzle, 2. Adidas

1. Reebok, 2. Reebok

"show me what you've got"

So this is how it worked. There are vendors selling shoes, and there are people with their own shoes. If you see a pair of shoes that a vendor has that you like, you can swap with them, or you can offer to sell your shoes to them. Somehow, if you know that another sneakergeek has a shoe that you want, you can just swap / pay him. Anyone who brought their own shoes and is interested in trade/selling has a bag of shoes with him, or hangs a pair over their shoulder so you can see them when you walk by.

Sneaker people have a look. It's the in the hat, or is it the shirt? It's like you can pull the pictures of people from brands like Supreme that follow hypebeast and place them here. I can't put my finger on it, but there is something unmistakeably identifiable about them.