Just how did sneakers become an obsession?

This is a guest blog post by David Hellqvist.

Some say fashion is like art:
perfectly designed and with the
sole purpose of making the world
a more beautiful place. There's one
difference: art that hangs on
gallery walls is only admired from
a distance, and that's not how we
treat our jumpers, coats and
shoes.
Of course, "sneaker heads" can
relate to this approach. Sneaking
into Fashion, a trainer exhibition
which opens today at Covent
Garden's Piazza, tracks the trainer's
cultural importance all the way
back to 1920, and nicely
demonstrates the sartorial
obsession of those who are head-
over-heels with their high-tops.
Among the hundreds of trainers
on display are those in which
Roger Bannister ran the first four-
minute mile in 1954 as well as Mo
Farah's Nike Volts, worn on "Super
Saturday". Trainers from Liam
Gallagher's personal collection can
be spotted, as can a pair of Beyoncé's Isabel Marant heeled high-tops.
But what is their appeal? Today, just about everyone owns a pair, but for those of us who grew up in the Eighties and Nineties trainers played a pivotal role in bridging music and fashion with everyday life.
"For me, trainers are the flag bearers of youth
culture. They represent a coming-of-age mentality, of getting into trouble, of discovering bands that changed my life," says the creative director of VICE, Ronojoy Dam.Trainers took their place on the street thanks to athletes who neglected to take them off after training. Quick to catch on to their cool appeal, music and fashion borrowed heavily from what was happening on the street and fed it back into the pop culture cycle. "Fashion will always take and appropriate from the street because it's what real people wear," explains Dam.
Since then, trainer culture has grown by epic
proportions: sneaker brands, sportswear giants and high-end fashion designers are in constant
competition to release the most desirable trainers on the planet. Consumers, in turn, go wild for expensive and exclusive kicks, queuing for hours and, in some instances, days.
"Certain shoes can sell out in minutes, even
seconds," says Hannes Hogeman, co-founder of
fashion and trainer online retailer Très Bien. "The
most intense one for us so far was Nike's Air Yeezy II.
Our webshop was down for eight hours because of
the amount of traffic." While customers do still queue up outside physical shops for their trainer fix, more and more collectors have taken to scouring the internet for rare editions.
"I remember reading about the riots in New York
when the Pigeon Dunk was released in 2005 — it put me off the idea of queuing for a while. But I have stayed up all night to buy a pair online — that's how I got my Adidas Adicolor Hi W2s," says Katie Corris, a 27-year-old graphic designer living in Canary Wharf.
But whose sneakers are the most desirable? Adidas is up there but Nike is true trainer royalty, it seems.
The Portland, Oregon-based company has long
understood the importance of mixing trainer
technology and superior design with smart
marketing. "The most idolised trainer has got to be Nike Air Jordan. It looked fit for outer space and because it was endorsed by the biggest sports star in the world, it broke all barriers in its lusting-after," says Dam.
The psychology behind this fixation with footwear is fairly simple: we live in a consumer-crazed society with a constant hunger for new products — but unlike many other collectible items, trainers are a true lifestyle choice. "I tend to spend three to four weeks narrowing down a new pair before I make the decision," says 23-year-old Dan Ross, a freelance photographic assistant from Archway. "Trainers need to complete and complement wide ranges of outfits
but, to be honest, I tend to dress around my trainers, not the other way."
Ronojoy Dam traces this passion back to our
formative years: "The obsession usually develops in our childhoods as they are naturally integrated into music, film and sport, more so than any other
clothing garment."
Hannes Hogeman highlights their rarity and potential value: "There's a true collecting aspect to sneakers since they come in different editions and models. Collecting rather than wearing them, keeping them in the box, selling or exchanging — trainers are ideal." But for Corris, trainers belong on the streets, not in boxes.
"For me, there's nothing like going to town to buy a pair of trainers, taking out a box-fresh pair and
wearing them for the first time, it's a real rush," she says. "I'd wear a new pair every day and have even been known to sleep with them on."
Sneaking into Fashion in association with
Javari.co.uk is open 9am-7pm from October 18-28 at Covent Garden Piazza.
David Hellqvist is the online editor at PORT Magazine.