Sneakers and thoughts that keep bouncing off my feet

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 58 seconds. Contains 1566 words.

I apologize for the pun in the title

If you see any of my posts on fedi, and/or if you read the last article, you know I've been on a fashion related hyperfocus lately. I've been spending too much money and time in search of clothes, of trying to create and understand styling nuances, and all that nitty-gritty stuff. When you are getting into streetwear in particular, you essentially get into sneakers at the same time. It's the default footwear, and not in a bad way, it truly captures the essence of streetwear on the feet.

This post is a semi-disjointed collection of thoughts I have on sneakers, because I have too many of those and I would like to write them down somewhere else than fedi or a Gemini chat. There is no grand conclusion or point to be made here, besides that fashion is complicated, messy, often expensive, but so fun if you get down into it. Such as many other subjects.

Why sneakers?

Let's start with being philosophical. What makes sneakers, sneakers? I wanted to start by defining sneakers, but honestly even Wikipedia does not do it¹. It's almost easier to describe what aren't sneakers. Sneakers are not formal shoes, they are not boots, they are not sandals. They can be made of anything that you can sell as sneakers, and you probably have a general idea of what they are. The shape of sneakers, you could say.

So, we stick with that vague, yet somehow understood definition of sneakers. They are defined by what they're not. But of course, not all sneakers are sneakers. And like almost everything related to fashion, it's subjective, and thankfully so because that means I can yap about it.

I have defined that there are two aspects that make sneakers sneakers. A mix of external, and internal reasons: identity and intention, let me explain. Identity is mostly external, it's what defines that shoe. Why is like that? For what purpose was it made, and for which purpose is it used now? Was it designed by a famous designer? Inspired by a certain player? A collaboration with a brand that probably shouldn't do sneakers? Here is also where we find heritage, many of the most iconic sneakers are old. The Adidas Samba is from 1949², the Nike Air Force 1 from 1982³, the Chuck Taylor All-Stars from 1922⁴. Yes, 1922 (and 1917 if you count the "Non-Skids"), All-Stars are old, and they were basketball shoes once upon a time.

As we continue to give meaning to our clothes, and now sneakers, heritage becomes more and more important. Some of us like to think we are wearing pieces of history, or the end result of grand ideas. You may discuss if the objects we have are in fact this, or some strange capitalist distortion of it.

Great, identity is, mostly, out of our hands. Intention is when we take identity, and we make it work in the here and now. It is internal (which does imply that two pairs of sneakers may not both be sneakers, which is funny so I'll accept it). Why did you buy them? How do you wear them? Do they make you feel good, stylish? Those are questions we ask, and I am particularly fond of the first one. This great difference between "I entered a store and bought these cool shoes" and "I bought a pair of Jordans". This is all, as I said, very subjective, but these feel like very distinct intentions to me, a piece of clothing, and something you actually care about.

Identity is what the shoe is; Intention is who I am when I wear it.

Skippies

In my journey, I started to want to read books about sneakers. Historical accounts, culture analysis, design documents, or a guy list of shoes he likes, but since he's important, he gets to write a book about it. You can see I have feelings about the latter, because I'm going through "Where'd you get those? : New York City's sneaker culture: 1960-1987", by Bobbito Garcia⁵. It is really a list of shoes he and his friends like, but it's interesting because they are from before when sneakers truly got interesting, so they're rather boring. Strangely fascinating, and perhaps a zoomer moment on my part. Bobbito is 40 years older than me, when this book was published I was 6, you can tell I don't know how New York was in the 70s.

But well, why am I telling you this? Because in this book, he and his other boomer friends (which are all men, by the way, boys' club I guess) use a slang from the time: skippies. Skippies are off-brand, cheap and unremarkable sneakers, stuff you'd be made fun of by wearing them when you were going to play basketball, as one did in New York in the 70s, I presume. In the book, the P.F. Flyer is mentioned, and by the comments, sounds like skippies. But well, who cares what were bad shoes in the 70s? Let's make it fun: What are skippies, in 2025 (soon 2026)?

Well, ok, again, subjective. And I want to preface by saying that it does not matter. You can care, or not care about the shoes. You can be a sneakerhead who thinks there are too many Panda Dunks around, or you can just wear the shoe. It's fine, if someone makes fun of you, they're cringe, I'm cringe sometimes. This is more of a fun thought experiment than actually a reflection of anything important, specially since we will completely go over everything related to price, wages, and how fashion is often marketed to be aspirational.

Heavy stuff out, alright. My favorite kind of skippies are clothing stores sneakers. Here in Brazil, there are dozens of these. Every store carries sneakers with no name, they're on the website by a description, a mention of color, and a price. They're not particularly expensive nor comfortable (for that matter, many expensive sneakers aren't comfortable either) and they often have no branding at all. Sneakers by definition, skippies by the will of Agatha writing this blog post.

Another kind of skippies, and perhaps the most damning of them all are the cheap knockoffs. These are sold on marketplaces like Temu, Wish, Aliexpress or Shopee. On the photos they have no branding, just a very coincidental resemblance to a famous sneaker. They are often very cheap, as in so cheap that there's no way these are comfortable or durable. The damning part is the comments, because people will post photos, and you'll see clear as day that they are, indeed, cheap knockoffs of famous sneakers. I see a lot of Jordans and other Nikes being copied, makes sense, big brand, the clout of wearing them.

Except that it doesn't really make sense, does it? Looking at the comments, my impression is that most people buying these have no idea it's supposed to be an AJ4 or an AJ1. They just see a cool looking sneaker, and buy it because it's cheap. And well, if you truly care about sneakers, you wouldn't buy a knockoff, it's embarrassing, snekearheads would find it ridiculous, and casuals don't know what a Jordan is to begin with. I can only imagine it's the price and general aesthetic that sells these. Anyway, skippies of the highest class.

Death of the author?

For the final thought that pesters my mind, let's talk about what happens when the face of a brand becomes problematic. And there is no better example than Kanye West, now known as Ye. If you, like me, weren't into sneakers in the 2010s, you may not know how big of a deal his collaboration with Adidas was. The Yeezy line was everywhere, hyped, and expensive. It was a big deal, and it still is, at least historically.

I'm not going to recount to you all the drama with the guy. Big asshole, big antisemite, this alone, for me, is enough to not want anything to do with him, and it was enough for Adidas too, since they ended the Yeezy collaboration in 2022⁶. The shoes were still sold for a few years, profits going for NGOs fighting antisemitism. But these were, liking or not, part of the history, I am currently reading "Sneaker Freaker: The Ultimate Sneaker Book", and Ye is literally the first big chapter of the book. The book is from before the controversies, so there's not even a little disclaimer. And all I can do is keep it in mind while reading.

Tiffany Beers, senior innovator at Nike, still proudly proclaims she designed Yeezy and the Nike Air Mag on her Instagram.⁷ I genuinely wonder if anyone cares, Ye was directly involved with these, but I guess not. The shoes are out there, and they are part of sneaker history. Can we separate the art from the artist? Well, I don't want to wear shoes designed by an antisemite, just as I don't want to watch movies based on a book series by a major transphobe.

Conclusion?

Thank you for reading my yapping, I am aware I can be long-winded and slightly annoying when talking about these subjects. Sneakers are fun, and I am enjoying my journey into fashion, even if it's expensive. Let me know if you own skippies, specially if it's a knockoff, those are very entertaining.

Footnotes

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