Sneaker Collecting

The acquisition and trading of sneakers as a hobby, practiced by collectors known as sneakerheads who traditionally favor basketball and skateboarding shoes, though the hobby has grown to take in wider streetwear trends. Sneaker collecting crystallized as a subculture in 1980s New York, driven by Michael Jordan's Air Jordan line, launched in 1985, and by hip-hop culture, which lent status to the shoes it favored, building on casual sneaker trading that had already begun in the 1970s; the hobby spread worldwide by the late 1990s and found a particularly devoted following in Japan by the twenty-first century. It has since grown into a substantial secondary resale market, with rare pairs commonly reselling for many times their original retail price.