Tag Archives: news

Shoe Thoughts: Why Mom & Pop Sneaker Shops Failed

I was listening to Quentin Tarantino talk about video stores the other day. He is not exactly a well-renowned sneakerhead, yet his thoughts about the decline of Mom & Pop video stores had me thinking about the ‘90s sneaker market.

We had the Air Jordan 1 High OG “Lost & Found” drop in 2022, a shoe inspired by the unsold Jordan 1 “Chicago” stock of the ‘90s. Back then the silhouette would hit the sale racks at even $20-40 and still not sell. Thus you would find pairs aging away in the basement stockrooms of Mom & Pop stores out in the US. Mom & Pop stores are just the UK equivalent of independent businesses, an idea that in this day has disappeared off this high street with many saying “support your local”.

Three different '85 and '94 editions of the Air Jordan 1 "Chicago" in a display box at the Sneakers Unboxed 2021 Exhibition at the London Design Museum

Anyway, Tarantino was reminiscing about the time he worked at the local video store, explaining the eventual decline of chains such as Blockbuster. He said that because of the new releases every week and month, the amount of stock that each store would acquire would compound over time. Of course, popular releases would continually get rented, whereas films with a smaller fanbase would fall to the wayside and end up being piled up in the back to make room for other popular releases.

Roger Avery says, “It’s literally a space issue”, in which Tarantino expands saying, “within three to four years you’re literally bursting out of the seams … now all of sudden your tapes are spine facing and it just never stops. If you have a chain you can move things around but if you’re a Mom & Pop that’s just it.”

taking a rest in a stockroom full of adidas trainers while wearing the air max 90 Infrared 2020 edition and ACG burgundy zip-off cargos from the 2019 Season

This is no different to sneakers. However, in the ‘90s there was no internet and online shop spaces, at least not compared to the 2010s and 2020s. This meant that sneakers would eventually pile up and up until they ended up overflowing in the basement.

Similar to the film industry, the footwear industry also worked and works on a constant release cycle, with each month bringing in a new array of drops. This is why shoes would become so heavily discounted to the point where you had the sneakerheads from Japan and other celebrities such as Fat Joe coming into these stores to clear out basements worth of stock.

I thought it was an interesting comparison as I finally realised why exactly these Mom & Pop stores ended up having so much old stock. Even though I worked retail myself, it was a chain where stock was allowed to flow to-and-from the main warehouse (a warehouse which was not only many in number but rumoured to be the size of several football fields). So now I am able to understand these local touchpoints for footwear culture operated in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

Kurt Vannegut on Boots + Music

Weisberg’s Night Rider is a display of ’70s flute at its finest. Pre the album artwork too, only makes the song that much better. If I’m ever cool enough to drop an album then best believe it’ll feature an old racer.

This song was too funky not to include. Came across it on a MAJ Brazilian reggae set where the lady doing the back-to-back kept gesturing a cobra with her hands. She seemed like good energy and this song was doing a lot of the sunny Friday afternoon that I found myself listening to it.

Here’s a Skepta and Novelist rework that captures the silhouetted MCs in what was the resurgence period for the genre. You can just make out the Streetz Iz Watchin’ cap that defined the North London artist’s mid-2010s era, as well as a young Novelist who at the time was championed by all the OGs. Here is the original set for those wondering.

The first two tracks came from the MAJ YouTube channel, as well as coming across another Mellow Grime producer in RONIN. These three songs weren’t available on Spotify, reminding me of how disappointed I get when actively searching for new music outside the platform’s algorithms.

Also here are some words about a pair of boots which really stood out to me while reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5:

"Those boots were almost all he owned in this world. They were his home. An anecdote: One time a recruit was watching him bone and wax those golden boots, and he held one up to the recruit and said, 'If you look in there deeply enough, you'll see Adam and Eve.'

Billy Pilgrim had not heard this anecdote. But, lying on the black ice there, Billy stared into the patina of the corporal's boots, saw Adam and Eve in the golden depths. They were naked. They were so innocent, so vulnerable, so eager to behave decently. Billy Pilgrim loved them.

Next to the golden boots were a pair of feet which were swaddled in rags. They were crisscrossed by canvas straps, were shod with hinged wooden clogs. Billy looked up at the face that went with the clogs. It was the face of a blond angel, of a fifteen-year-old boy.

The boy was as beautiful as Eve.

There’s a lot of religious symbolism which I haven’t broken down yet. If a boot is so shiny and golden, thus acting like a mirror in which that person can look into their soul. Whether or not that person is pure enough to possess that energy within is to be decided. Anywho, I’ll be looking out for more boot related sections as I read on. So It Goes.

Sticking with the abandoned footwear narrative, here is a cool video of someone putting together images of lost footwear they found in Thailand. It’s only available in 240p as it was uploaded about back in 2019, which in hindsight is no excuse as to why this should be such a low resolution. Perhaps it was an aesthetic choice, in which case I fully respect the creative license. A pioneer some might say, and with a name as cool as “Sill E”, I’m starting to think I’ve stumbled across this era’s Kubrick. You’ve earnt yourself a subscriber Mr E.