Why Brands Are Making You Work Harder for Hyped Sneaker R…

The hunt is often better than the kill. The journey is better than the destination. Trying to get a pair of sneakers, and jumping through hoops to obtain them, is a more satisfying feeling than owning the physical shoes—for some, at least. The world as we know it is undergoing a reset at the moment, and the sneaker world is experiencing one, too. Gone are the days of complaining that a shoe is limited. In are the days of going on a quest to get a sneaker. It’s almost as if people want to follow the yellow brick road to obtain the slippers—I mean shoes—of their dreams.

There was a time not too long ago when everyone (and by everyone, I mean people that got into sneakers during the pandemic) was up in arms about hyped sneakers being released in limited quantities. They felt it was unfair that Nike could make a shoe like the Chunky Dunky, the Dior x Air Jordan 1, or any Travis Scott collab in quantities that were less than the demand for the product. They projected that if you had the money to purchase a sneaker at retail, then a brand should allow you to do such.

Long gone were the days of the Pigeon Dunk only being released at Reed Space in 2005, where a so-called “riot” broke out. Or the days of the Galaxy Foamposite in 2012, when a release was shut down by police helicopters in Florida and madness ensued over them in New York City. Or even the Entourage or PlayStation Air Force 1s, where, honestly, I don’t even know how you would get the dang things.

But a lot has changed in the sneaker world since those glory days. Everyone and their mother got into buying and selling limited-edition shoes. The advent of the SNKRS app made it easy to try your hand at nearly every release. You didn’t have to know the guy at the local sneaker boutique, or even live in a major city to be able to purchase the shoes that everyone wanted. You didn’t have to be cool to have the cool sneakers. People wanted equality in a game that was always about exclusivity. Even if Jordans were made by the millions in the 1980s and ‘90s, it was the price that was the gatekeeper.

Starting some time around the early 2020s, people didn’t want to hear that they couldn’t get a sneaker. They felt like they deserved it. Here’s a hard truth: you don’t deserve anything in life.

Something that made a lot of people feel jaded towards striking out on shoes was the perceived unfairness of it all. Bots ran rampant in the late 2010s and early 2020s. Especially during the onset of the pandemic, when a bunch of crypto dorks-turned-resellers tried their hands at flipping Yeezys and whatever else they could get their hands on. They bought into a dream, and it all came crashing down on them, just like their NFTs.

People were upset that they had to spend $800 on a sneaker that retailed for $150. And I totally understand that sentiment. There was a moment in 2020, when all of the stimulus money was floating around, that if a sneaker didn’t resell for $1,000, then it wasn’t a hit. And that’s absurd.

So what did brands do? Well, they started to make more sneakers. They collapsed the resale market as we know it. Most cool shoes go for a little over retail these days, except Travis’s sneakers. Nike went cold. Smaller brands became hot. The sneakers on Sneaker of the Year lists weren’t the mega-expensive grails like they were in the past.

People bought what they liked. And they could buy the sneakers when they wanted. “Black Cement” 3s sat on shelves. So did the “Legend Blue” 11s. The answer to solving the stagnation with the sneaker consumer wasn’t just going back to making less and less shoes so people fight over them. It was to gamify the sneaker-buying experience. To send people on sneaker quests. It made the pursuit of the sneaker the cool thing to do. If brands couldn’t drop sneakers in super-limited quantities in the traditional sense and not draw ire from the public, then they needed to do it in new, fun ways.

London streetwear brand Corteiz is a master of this process. In 2023, Corteiz took to New York City to drop its Air Max 95 at a bodega. Everyone had to meet at the Nike billboard on 34th St to get a set of coordinates, which led to a corner store near the East Village. There was a similar release in Paris. People were roof surfing on the tops of buses for the shoes.

There was a similar release in New York City for Corteiz’s Air Trainer Huarache collaboration in December. The brand put out a newspaper that had coordinates in it, which ended up leading to Tom, Dick, and Harry’s, a seminal footwear retailer in Brooklyn.

The release was applauded. It brought back the “outside” feeling that people were missing in recent years. It was a way to do something special in small numbers, and not make the people from flyover states (shoutout to everyone in flyover states—I wish I could live there) angry on the internet.

The sneaker of the year to me (so far) is the “Ruby Red Slipper” Nike SB Dunk that was hidden amongst the restock of the Wizard of Oz Dunks that hit skate shops last week. No one saw this one coming. The original pair had an upper covered in a poppy field print, which could be cut away and reveal a flat red material. Maybe it was foreshadowing of the Ruby Red Slippers to come. The cool thing about these shoes was that all the pairs were bagged inside of the box, which gave it a blind-box effect. Whether people want to wear a sequined red shoe, that’s up to them. But it was the perfect Easter egg hidden in plain sight. Those who wanted the shoe, which wasn’t extremely hyped, got a chance to get them. And no one knew that a second, ultra rare batch ofthe “Ruby Red Slipper” version was sprinkled in. That part of the drop was first revealed by Bluetile Skateboards in Columbia, South Carolina, last week. And then others started to roll in. According to a sneaker industry source, there are less than 100 pairs of the “Ruby Red Slipper” SB Dunks in existence. There’s no way Nike could launch something so limited on its own. But hiding it in a wider release, Willy Wonka style, is genius. It doesn’t cause riots. Rather, it blesses those who wanted the shoes anyway. It’s a feel-good story, rather than one of envy, greed, and resellers. It takes sneakers back to a more pure place, one that we can all champion.

Another recent sneaker quest was an unofficial release of sorts. It was a New Balance 860v2, which was hand-dyed by UK designer Lorenz.OG. The “Dusk” sneakers came in mismatching left and right shoes and were launched, once again, Willy Wonka-style, by having shoppers purchase custom Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate bar that secured access to the sneakers. Two of these tickets were given away by sneaker shop Footpatrol in London. There were scenes in Soho for those trying to get the shoes. Not many people have a chance at owning Lorenz’s custom work, so getting a pair, and a good looking pair of New Balance 860s, was a dream come true for them. People are listing their pairs for a lot of money on StockX, and some are selling for $900. Maybe it’s a sign that New Balance should do an official project with him in the future.

The re-release of the “Bred” Air Jordan 1 might be the biggest release of the year. But it’s not that in numbers. Retail sources in the US tell Complex that Jordan Brand informed them there were only 10,000 pairs dropping, with more pairs rumored to be releasing internationally. Jordan Brand is scaling back on its most important shoe. Bumping the price to $250 and cutting back the distribution is a bold move. But maybe it’s what was needed to bring energy—and the idea that you need to hunt for its shoes—back to the brand. Its recent re-releases the Air Jordan 3 “Black Cement” and Air Jordan 11 “Legend Blue” weren’t met with the warmest of reactions compared to past releases. If the “Bred” Jordan 1 sat on shelves, it would be a tough pill to swallow for the brand that holds its ego at the center of sneaker culture. So they’ve made the shoe a premium release, like it’s a luxury good. Retailers have been instructed to create for customers a “white glove” experience to make them feel special. First-come first-served launches are not a priority for the shoe, retailers stocking the black and red Jordan 1 tell Complex. It’s the opposite of first-come, first-serve. Will people be happy? It’s hard to tell. But the shoes were made to look as similar to the original 1985 pair as possible, with premium leather to boot.

So is this the new trend? To turn sneakerheads into Bilbo Baggins, on a journey to get the grails of their dream; Indiana Jones in hunt of their own holy grail, just with no Sean Connery? I think so. But it’s a fine line. These are cool right now. But expect this trend to jump the shark. People are only willing to do so much before something gets corny, and that can happen quickly with marketing gimmicks. If the treasure isn’t worth the miles trekked, then sneakerheads won’t be a fool for the gold.