The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 87 — Strictly for the ladies
Meet Christina Kenan, the founder of If I Can't Wear Snkrs
Gooood morning, folks! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear! Thanks so much for spending a bit of time with me today — I really appreciate the love!
Got a special treat for y’all this morning. We have a guest!
Let’s dive in.
If I Can’t Wear Snkrs
Meet Christina Kenan! She is the founder of If I Can’t Wear Snkrs — an Instagram page dedicated to dishing out information on women’s sneaker releases quick, fast and in a hurry. It’s a page for women only, curated by a Black woman sharing her love and passion for sneakers.
The homie Taylor put me on to the page and what she was doing, and I thought it was super dope. So I hit her up, we chatted and I thought it’d be great to give y’all a peek into our conversation. This is long, so it’ll take a couple sections. But you’ll enjoy it!
Anyway, enough of me rambling. Without further ado!
This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for brevity.
When did you first start If I can't Wear SNKRS?
So, actually, I had that page for a couple of months before I started If I Can't Wear Snkrs to upload outfit ideas as a plus-sized women into streetwear. But then a couple of things happened.
Before I started, I had a small group chat with a few of my friends — all of us female. I'd tell them about sneaker drops and they'd ask questions.
Then Melody Ehsani OG dropped on her website and, of course, the bots took over. Me and a bunch of other angry women on Twitter talking about how we didn’t get them. And I struck up a conversation with this girl, we were just talking about Melody. After Melody announced she was doing a raffle I let the girl know in a tweet. Then I woke up the next morning with a screenshot of my tweet saying, "Hey, we want to send you both an invoice for the OG’s."
Wow.
Yeah, that was super dope. It was the second time Melody reached out to me to cop her sneakers. She’d helped me with the Jordan 1's last year but this time she actually screenshotted my tweet and not only blessed me but another woman with pairs.
So I knew I had to keep up the good karma. So I started the page literally the next day and was able to help 9 girls get a pair without any bots that first weekend.
What was that moment of Melody reaching out to you like?
I can admit that the first time, I was really bothering her. I've been a Melody Ehsani fan since 2008, back in her Karma Loop days when she had the shaved side before Cassie did it.
So I always tweeted her, and that was the first shoe I had craved like nothing before in years but it sold out instantly. I was reminded why I stepped away from sneakers. But I kept tweeting her and tweeting her, went to bed. The next day, I woke up and saw a message from her asking "what size do you wear?" She didn’t have my size in stock at the time, but three days later she was asking for my e-mail to send an invoice and I lost it.
It sounds like what she did gave you a sense of wanting to pay it forward'
Feeling seen was a game changer for me. Of course, you had female designers before her like your Vashties and Aleali Mays, but I knew I stood no chance. So when you have someone who you've idolized for years and they reach out to you, it just solidifies everything you thought about them.
Just seeing how she put ladies first, it was amazing. It was a feeling I'd never felt before — especially in sneakers. So I said "you know what? I need to pay it forward."
So since you've started to build your own platform, how have you seen that blossom?
I didn’t think it’d blow because you don't see a lot of private pages trying to grow a platform, but I wanted to create that platform privately as a safe space for women. You don't really see women engaging on most platforms and when they are, men usually talk down to them.
It started off as family and friends and then it just organically blossomed by word of mouth. It felt like an exclusive club…It's already grown so much and I only just started in March.
What role do you feel like If I Can’t Wear Sneakers plays for women getting in the game?
It's essential because women want to get into the sneaker game, but don't really know where to start. Things we think of as common, some women may not know. For example, a girl slid in my DM to ask the difference between SNKRS and the Nike app.
So, not only do we provide drop information, but it's also a place to shoot the shit and ask questions and allow them to feel involved in an industry overrun by men.
That's why it’s so dope the page is private. It allows women room to cop up and learn about the game. It is a community in the realest sense.
I've seen men online going hard after women's releases without any appreciation of them. I've seen guys say to Melody, for example, "I don't know who you are but can you help me get your sneakers." It's crazy...I just cut through all of that.
If I can't Wear Sneakers is a resource for women to get information on drops so they get there first — international drops included, because sometimes you may get lucky there. My best way to get by the bots and the is to provide the most accurate information.
It's also safe space. So for my girls, when they see men getting in line for women sneakers or fighting over women's sneakers, they'll bring it to my page and I'll repost it and we'll get a dialogue going. But just the fact that women think to come to my page if only just to vent lets me know I'm doing something right.
So what's ahead for you and If I Can't Wear Sneakers?
A lot of women have asked for a YouTube, I don't think I'm there yet. I like Instagram because it's so contained and I can approve people. I was thinking maybe a blog, but that's hard to regulate. So as far as progression, I'm not sure where I'd go next. Maybe even a newsletter to my girls — I'm not quite sure.
But for right now, I think my Instagram makes me feel good about the platform I've created. So we're chilling. It’s grown organically. I've got homegirls in the UK, Mexico. Japan, too. All by word of mouth. It's growing slowly but surely, so I just trust the process.
Puma’s hype plan
(Photo by June Wong on Unsplash)
A few weeks back here we talked about J Cole and his new signature hoops shoe with Puma, the RS Dreamer.
Everything about it was confusing. Giving a rapper a signature hoop shoe made very little sense. Especially when you’re a brand like Puma that hasn’t really landed on an actual established hoops star yet.
Fast forward things to today, though, and the vision for this shoe is clearer. We were thinking about it all wrong.
We thought it was a hoop shoe instead of what it actually was — a hype shoe.
It’s pretty clear now that Puma had very little intention of marketing this thing as a performance basketball shoe and thought of it more as a lifestyle product.
A handful of colorways have dropped so far with the latest being the triple red “Blood, Sweat and Tears” colorway. Each and every one of those drops have been super limited to the point where they sell out in literal minutes.
We don’t typically see this with the hoop shoes of today. It’s very rare that, say, a pair of Kyrie 6’s or LeBron 17’s would have a limited run. But that’s because their primary function is performance.
For the Dreamer, that’s clearly not the case. That’s made clear by how quickly it’s selling out. If it was, it’d actually be more available on shelves at retail spots.
Basketball seems to be another medium to push the shoe — not the other way around. If you look at it in that light, it makes sense that this would be a J Cole shoe and not someone on their basketball roster’s.
What the end goal is here? That’s still unclear. We just have to wait and see.
Sneaker content coming to your screen
Sorry, y’all. The shark has officially jumped on sneaker culture. Why? Because Kevin Hart is here. It’s corny now. Those are the rules.
In all seriousness, Hart is one of a handful of folks bringing hypebeasts are coming to the big screen (and small screen!) too.
Apparently, Hart, Chris Paul, Pete Davidson and O’shea Jackson Jr. (Ice Cube’s son) are all partnering together to produce a dramedy about the sneaker aftermarket. Which, uh, alright lol.
There’s also a Sneakerheads show coming to Netflix starring Allen Moldonado where he puts together a resale group that searches the world for grails and charge people hand over fist for them to clear some debt.
Could be good! It could also stink. No idea. We’ll see. Either way, lots of sneaker content is coming our way soon!
We made it, I guess?
#TheKicksWeWear
Y’ALL KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS. LEGGOOOOOO.
First, the homie Shawna came through too clean in the BETRUE Air Max 2090’s.
Then, the homie Mags came out talking cash to Sixers fans with this mad disrespectful hat and the Pine Green AJ1’s.
The homie Rawlings popped out with the Motorsport AJ4’s and I have no idea why this shoe wasn’t more hyped.
The homie Tiara popped out for the first time in the Yacht Club Vans.
The homie Dandin popped out in the Carolina Blue low AJ2’s. Man, I’m warming up to the AJ2.
The homie Alex came through in the CNCPTS 327s and, fam, I’d go to Boston just to cop these if I had to.
My family Theories of Doubt jumped out in the Spiridon Cage 2’s and DAMN.
The homie JBlock popped out ready for Lillard time in the Nigel Sylverster AJ1. I’m mad jealous bruh lmao.
The homie Adrian popped out repping Australia in the Olympic Prestos! Fam, if y’all could see the details on these.
Then the homie Jose flat out STUNTED on us with the De La Souls. FAM. SHUT IT DOWN, THEN.
WHEW. Y’all done did it again, family. My word.
That’s a wrap for this week, folks! Thanks for giving me a bit of your time today. Y’all are the absolute best, man. Thanks again for rocking with me on the thread this week!
I’ll be right back on Monday with more heat for you. Until then, have an amazing weekend! Love you, family. Tell a friend to tell a friend about the Kicks You Wear.
As always, peace and love. Be easy. Be well. Be kind.
Signing off.
—Sykes 💯