RUNNING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK
A CAREFUL BLEND OF MARKETING, ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY AND CELEBRITY BACKING HAS TRANSFORMED SPORTS SHOES INTO A CULT PRODUCT
HE’S been buying at £3 100 (R63 550) and selling for £10 000 (R205 000), Omar Aziz tells us as he rushes between business meetings in London. The 23-year-old isn’t talking about stocks, but the mark-up on Generation Z’s new favourite asset class: trainers. Dior x Nike Air Jordan 1 Highs, to be precise.
Omar has just opened a shop in Knightsbridge, one of London’s most-sought-after postcodes, where he sells limited-edition trainers to a customer base that includes famous rappers and wealthy expats. Standing across from Harrods, the store has the kind of opulent décor and trendy name you might expect. It’s called “CONCEPT”, but without the vowels. Omar’s business partner, 27-year-old David Lemos, welcomes me into the store.
Each shoe has been individually vacuum-packed in see-through plastic and carefully arranged on white marble pedestals. There is a line of fur jackets hanging from gold railings, two tall mannequins dressed in floor-length ballgowns, white leather armchairs and a wall of diamond rings, gold necklaces and marble-size pearls.
For the two entrepreneurs, trainers – or sneakers, as some people call them – are assets. “I’d rather put my money in shoes than bitcoin,” Omar says.
They are part of a growing community of traders who buy limited-edition, difficult-to-source trainers from brands, including Nike and Adidas and luxury labels such as Chanel, then resell them – marked up – to “sneakerheads”, trainer lovers willing to spend hundreds or thousands on shoes.
In a recent
