Good morning, family! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear! Thank y’all so much for rocking with me on this glorious Friday. I hope you’ve had an amazing week.
Some great news before we get into today’s treat. We FINALLY hit 2,000 subscribers! LEGGOOOOOOOOO. Shouts to y’all, man. Y’all are the best audience I could ask for, and I couldn’t be more thankful. So, y’all know what comes next. Giveaway details on Monday.
ALSO, one more thing. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now — we have a new logo. There’s merch coming with that logo. Again. Details MONDAY. Stay tuned, fam.
Alright, let’s jump in.
Catching up with Keeping Stock
Meet Julian Gray! The homie is the host of the sneaker podcast Keeping Stock — a podcast about the sneaker world at large that drops every Sunday. This is my favorite sneaker pod, by far, and it’s not just because I’ve been on there a couple times so far.
Sneaker podcasts are hard, y’all. Especially when you’re a sneaker nerd. But Julian is really good at distilling all of that and connecting the sneaker world to the rest of the world at large. It’s digestible for people in and outside of the game.
We linked up real quick to chat about his journey in creating the pod, how he puts it together and his thoughts on the industry as a whole. You’re gonna love it.
This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for brevity.
Sykes: Walk us through how you got started on this thing and what inspired you to do it.
Julian: I really got into footwear in 2012…I played basketball in high school and college, too. During one of my stints, one of my jobs was working at Foot Locker in the retail space as an assistant manager for a little bit.
And after I graduated, I had written a pilot for a mocumentary style TV show, and I was reading that one day and decided I wanted to jump back into the sneaker realm a little bit.
S: So that’s when you started the pod?
JG: No, I had started an Instagram at one point. At that time, it was called Sneaker Diet. And that was right before it got big and made all the changes and things got weird with the algorithm. After it changed, I took a step back and came back with the pod. It was something to help me spend less money on shoes by talking about sneakers more often.
S: Has that worked for you? Let me tell you, it absolutely hasn’t for me.
JG: Ha, yeah actually. Talking about them actually has helped me kind of better understand the shoes that I like and I don’t like and what I really need and what I’ll look back on and be like “I’m glad I still have these” as opposed to, you know, everything that’s super hyped. It’s helped me in the grand scheme.
S: Anyway, enough about me. I’m curious, how do you apply your experience working at Footlocker to the pod? I missed out on that footwear retail experience. Everyone says it’s been super valuable to them in the grand scheme.
JG: From working within a retail environment and a variety of Footlockers, a small market House of Hoops, when you’re in those stores you’re in there so often that you kind of absorb all of this knowledge and get a little bit more involved in the job. The ones who gravitate toward it already had an interest for it. So, maybe it’s a stepping stone. A lot of people have that goal of working in the industry — working for Nike, working for Adidas. And this is going to help out. And this is, in some regards, how I got pulled in. I majored in business marketing, and this was going to help me better understand.
S: Biggest lesson you learned that applies to how you think about the pod?
JG: You’re involved in so many things and so many brands are doing different demographics and targeting, and you start to get more perspective of what people value in sneakers, what their thoughts are. Very similarly to a journalist, you get a lot of viewpoints that help open your mind to understanding what some sneakers really mean to some people. You have a better understanding of consumer behavior patterns.
S: How exactly do you apply that to the pod? What do you look for?
JG: I use that knowledge to plan throughout the week. I just absorb a lot of good content — shoutout to your newsletter, by the way. I know my audience — it’s diverse. There’s a good female following as well. I know there are new people coming in, some are bonafide vets in the game. There are some who just tune in for the first time trying to learn more. And so I structure my episodes with the first half filled with information useful in conversation. Then, I’ll transition to something adjacent that’s happened that week within the sneaker realm. And then, I’ll get into releases and things like that.
S: Doing a sneaker podcast is hard, man. It’s so hard not to get nerdy, which can get gatekeeper-y.
JG: Yeah, honestly, gatekeeping can be a tough thing. Some people don’t think they do. But the way I look at the pod, it’s 20-30 minutes long. No one really cares what I talk about. But a lot of people are consuming it to listen and go through the day. And I kind of just drill it down. If I can provide one area that makes you go “I wonder if that’s how it is?” or “I disagree with that” or “I wonder what else this makes me think of,” if I can do that at least once an episode, I’m perfectly fine with that.
S: Wow. I never thought of it that way.
JG: That’s what most people are looking for. Some are looking for very specific gems and very specific research, but I think a lot of the general audience is looking for something to say “You know, what if SNKRS really changed? What if they did pre-orders?” They want to just have that conversation with themselves. They want something thought-provoking.
S: That’s brilliant. And something that doesn’t even click in my mind while I’m speaking.
JG: Here’s how I see it. Say I stop recording next week or three weeks, or whatever. I can always look back at this as a time capsule in sneaker history and see what we were talking about back then or what was going on back then. And I think that’s just really cool.
S: Absolutely. Before we get out of here, what’s the one trend you think the industry is missing right now? What’s the thing you’d change?
JG: As a 25-year-old, I think it’s missing the perspective of the younger demos — sub 28-year-olds, maybe? Look at Nike, for example. We’re seeing a lot of iterations of the same thing. At a certain point, you can only have so many Jordan 1’s or Jordan 4’s or signature athlete sneakers...A lot of the people making decisions have been in the game for a long time. But this new generation, maybe their peak was the end of Kobe’s career and the height of LeBron, but they’re designing for people who are still on the height of Jordan if that makes sense.
S: Yup, that makes a ton of sense. The brand sort of cannibalizes itself with all of these retros. It’s a weird thing. Like, for example, with the “What The” Jordan 5 that just dropped. What is that?
JG: Right. And to your point on that, instead of working on a new model that may or may not work and experimenting, they take an older model and hope that social media drives the hype itself. That’s how you end up with a lot of retros that are just sitting and are terrible because the hype didn’t sell it for them.
S: Another great point my man.
JG: Let me know when you’re starting that Discord or Slack. I look forward to talking with you on there, man.
S: Haha, absolutely dude. Thanks again for doing this.
It’s not Big Faced Sneakers but it’s a good deal
(Photo by Andre Tan on Unsplash)
Big shouts to Jimmy Butler, who just hopped out of the sneaker free agent pool and into a brand new deal with Chinese sneaker brand Li-Ning, ESPN’s Nick DePaula reports.
Butler will be the new face of Li-Ning in the NBA with Dwyane Wade (Jimmy’s pal). Li-Ning carries Wade’s Way of Wade brand but, obviously with him retired, they were missing an on court presence..
Butler’s deal changes that.
It immediately gives them a star in his prime who just carried a team to the NBA Finals. That’s big time. It also brings Li-Ning back to a big NBA market in Miami.
I thought Butler had a real opportunity to launch something independently. After he launched his Big Face Coffee and partnered with Lululemon, it felt like there was room for him to do the same in the sneaker realm.
That’s not what this is right now, but maybe it turns into that someday. Way of Wade was a signature shoe before it became a subsidiary under Li-Ning. That’s appealing for anybody. And, if this is a deal that could lead to that for Butler, it makes perfect sense for him to take it.
There’s no question that Butler will get a signature line from this. The real question is, how big does it get.
Adidas has to throw these away
We were literally JUST talking about how Yeezy and Adidas stayed on trend and ahead of the curve. So of course, they had to leak some hot garbage this week.
The Yeezy Foam Runner has never looked worse than it did right here. I mean, this is absolutely awful. What is the direction here?
They do not deserve an eye emoji. I’m not even sure they deserve a poop emoji, despite sort of looking like it. The homies were calling it a Swedish fish and Jaws. I think both Swedish Fish and Jaws should throw hands with the homies now, respectfully.
It is on trend, I guess, with clogs on the rise. And Adidas is normally really good at this kind of stuff. But if this is what you have to do to be on trend? Hard pass, fam.
#TheKicksWeWear
No idea HOW in the hell y’all expect me to pick today when literally everyone dropped heat in the thread Thursday. We really turnt TF up.
But whatever. YOU KNOW THE VIBES.
First, the homie Lyndsay kicked us off with the Bron Soldier 18’s. Y’all just WAIT til the courts open back up.
The homie Madison popped out in these custom Chucks that made everything about life so much better.
Then the homie Shy came through in the Melody Ehsani OG Jordan’s and MY GOD.
The homie Josh stepped out in the Dorothy Dunks and YO why are these so damn good?
The better Mike stepped out in the FOG Moc fresh out of the box. Yo, that kinda rhymes.
The homie Peter popped out in the Michigan Dunks and, fam, these are too clean.
The homie Ashton made his #TKWW debut with these fire J’s and an incredible lace job.
The homie JBlock popped out in these Mountain Fly ACG joints. I needs em.
The homie Greer kept the ACG love going with the Cheetah Mocs.
The homie Izzy was rocking the Pure Platinum Dunks and, you guessed it, they’re icy AF.
The homie Cesar is wearing the best Blazers I’ve ever seen in my life.
The Round Up hit us with the Jubilee 11’s and I am completely backing off what I said about these. They are PHENOMENAL.
The homie David popped out to the trail in some pure Sacai flavors today and was repped #TheKicksWeWear.
The homie Rob stepped out in the Off-White Dunks in the UNLV flavors and man they are amazing.
My guy Jimmy popped out in the NBY x Pendleton AF1’s and they are pristine.
Then my guy Tyler Tynes sent us all packing with the OG Chicago AJ1. STUNTING, folks. Good Lord.
Man. Do yourself a favor and go peep the entire thread. There’s not a flyer community out there. I promise you.
Thank y’all for rocking with me today, as always. And thank you, again, for 2,000. Y’all are the best. I really can’t believe this.
Monday, we’ll do the giveaway details. And I’ll have some other cool stuff to share, too! It’ll be fun. See you then!
Until next time, folks. Peace and love. Be easy. Be well. Be kind.
Signing off.
—Sykes 💯
2K lets gooooooooo! Congrats
Congrats on 2k!