I’ve mentioned a few times how my trip to Hong Kong turned my affection for sneakers in to a full blown love affair, but I thought I’d give a visual representation of the addiction.

This was my sneaker collection before going to Hong Kong:

This is the current status of my shoe addiction, I can’t say it won’t have increased by next week:

All this in less than three months – maybe slow going for Imelda Marcos but this is pretty huge for me. Although still not huge enough. I have my eye on a couple of other pairs that I wouldn’t mind getting for Xmas, there is even a space for them in the picture – hint hint Mum?

You’ll notice that the collection is overwhelmingly in the adidas camp but there is an understated new addition nudging it’s way in by masquerading as a tree or grass – it’s a Nike Court Force in army green and treeline. I picked it up quite cheap at the Nike Outlet Store on the Gold Coast because it was a sample. It’s quite astounding that I’ve waited until I was 31 before owning my first pair of Nikes but I’ve never really been a fan. That was until I started trolling the sneakers sites and gaining an appreciation of what Nike does with it’s sneakers.

I’d only ever noticed their running and basketball shoes – I suppose because I wasn’t looking in the right places. Nike have a large range of shoes designed for skateboarding which I am quite partial to. I like the Dunks, Dunks SB, Air Force and Court Force. I’m impressed by the materials they are using – they aren’t afraid to put crocodile and snake imitation leather next to mesh or cloth. I make it sound horrific but there are some great sneakers dropping. The only thing is – you won’t find them in your nearest rebel sport.

Turns out Nike have different tiers of accounts with stores and the cream of them are usually boutique sneaker stores. The tier 0s and 1s get more of the limited edition shoes while down in the tier 5s you get your general issue run of the mill Nikes. Tier 0s and 1 accounts also get what they call quickstrike shoes which are highly limited (think 200 shoes in the world) but only Tier 0 accounts get the hyperstrikes – about 24 shoes only available to friends and family – not for sale. As far as I know there is only one tier 1 store in Brisbane – Apartment in Elizabeth Arcade. You shop there and you can be pretty certain that the kicks are going to be fresh (see I’m learning the lingo). Other stores to look at is the General Pants Company in the mall and Laced on Adelaide Street near JB Hi Fi. There is only one Tier 0 store in Australia and of course that is in Sydney – I’m not going to hand feed you it’s name though. 🙂

I bet you never knew that selling sneakers was such an intricate affair, I certainly didn’t. There is a rabid community addicted to sneakers (such as Sneaker Freakers), even going so far as to create an encylopedia of shoes. Admittedly the limitations on the sneaker quantity falsely creates desire but it is also frustrating thinking you’ve found the pair of shoes that describe you and discovering that everyone else is described in the same way.

The other recent addition is the velcro Stan Smith Adidas Adicolor series. They weren’t cheap considering they were bought in the Adidas outlet store but hey, they are velcro and TRON! It’s ironic that I have to go to outlet stores to discover the shoes I’ve only seen on the net and not in stores in the city. There is a rumour that Nike are considering another outlet store at DFO near the Brisbane Airport but that could be dangerous on my wallet.

The only reason I don’t have more is because I can’t narrow down my choices!

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