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We all remember the shoe that got us into sneakers. In the birdwatching world, the bird that got you into the hobby is called a ‘sparkbird’. If we can combine the two terms, your ‘sparksneaker’ might not necessarily still form a core part of your rotation, but you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think you have a soft spot for the shoe, whatever it is.
For a lot of you—and as much maligned you might speak of it today—that sneaker was the Comme des Garcons Play x Converse chucks. We can hear you scoff from here. But the grip those black and white sneakers with the little red heart had on people with a stable income was palpable not all that long ago. It was the starting moment, and the floodgates were opened from there. Then, once those had been discarded, and Instagram posts deleted, it was onto raffles, line-ups, Discord groups, and everything else in the sneaker world. You probably wish you never even heard of the term collectable sneaker, or at least your bank account probably does, but at this point, you were on the train, and there’s no getting off.
Over the past few months, in case you needed a reminder of your own journey to personal footwear nirvana (at least for the time being), actor Timothée Chalamet has given us a brief insight into the sneakerhead story. He’s gone from old-school, to Foot Locker shopping, to designer, charting a path we all know too well.
