NIKETALK in Forbes Magazine....

[brilliant]

Last month, I was contacted by a reporter at Forbes Magazine writing a story on the sneaker collecting market. The issue has just hit newsstands and iscurrently available to view online here: Classic Kicks - A Fortune in Your Closet?

NikeTalk.com got dropped in the piece. Here's the full article..

Smart Collecting - A Fortune in Your Closet?

By Hannah Elliott, 12.28.09, 12:00 AM ET

Laurent Touma can spot his ideal woman a mile away: Her footprints will bear the mark of Nike's unmistakable waffle-runner sole. "If I see a girl with these shoes, it means she is different, smart," he says. "If a girl has on a vintage Nike that is a little bit pointy on the toe … I think that is very sexy, very chic." The 35-year-old former banker is a vintage sneaker specialist who founded Arkamix, an online vintage shoe emporium. His Miami loft has been home to 600 pairs of navy suede trainers and orange-swooshed waffle racers since 2003, when his then girlfriend introduced him to the world of classic sneaks.

The girlfriend is long gone; the shoe fetish remains. Touma started out paying $8 to $20 on Ebay for deadstock (inventory that never moved) cleats or long-forgotten high-tops, then selling them for up to $225 a pair to a store in Paris. Touma is different from sneakerheads who wait in line overnight for the latest reissue of Nike Air Force 1s or Air Jordans. He focuses on the classics: the foam-soled, gold-and-ginger 1979 Nike Daybreak, the fuchsia 1985 Nike Hijack Linda Hamilton wore in Terminator. Every month Touma ships 250 pairs to Asia and Europe. Last year Arkamix's profits hit six figures.

What's so great about an old pair of sneakers--which often requires olfactory fortitude, to say nothing of hours scrubbing sidewalls, replacing laces, affixing new soles? As Jesse Leyva, Nike's design director for sportswear, puts it, vintage wear evokes ingenious styling--and an Edenic, presteroidal era of hero worship. "It's the same feeling when you buy a vintage Rolex," says Touma, who owns a mid-1980s model. "Why would I want a flashy new one?"

No classicist can do without Michael Jordan's 1985 shoe (and the 1988 Air Jordan IIIs, the first by Nike's longtime designer Tinker Hatfield and the first to display the Jumpman logo). Chuck Taylor and Patrick Ewing had shoes worth wearing, too, but nothing on par with M.J.'s. For the latter, expect to pay at least $5,000 per pair, based on condition, color, size and the mood at the auction.

Not everyone can find vintage sneakers, so they buy retro shoes--new shoes inspired by the originals. Japan, Hong Kong and L.A. drive this market, particularly for shoes that reflect basketball, hip-hop and street culture. With a finite pool of Nike Blazers (circa 1973) to go around, enthusiasts buy from smaller brands like Supra or custom designers like Methamphibian. If there's a retro thought leader, it's Ben Yang, a.k.a. Ben Baller, a.k.a. K-Town Hustler. He once owned 1,800 pairs of sneakers and valued them at $1 million. (Plausible: Parts of Baller's collection earned $329,000 at auction in 2004--05.) The 36-year-old jewelry designer bought his first Air Jordans in 1985 as a 12-year-old with a paper route and a side business selling Transformers. He saved enough to buy two pairs--one to wear, one to preserve.

But retros may be running their course. "There's only so much you can put out there," says John Brilliant, who helped found NikeTalk.com in 1999, one of the first sneaker forums. The site, he says, gets an average 90,000 unique visitors a day. Brilliant owns 500 pairs of vintage and retro shoes. "For the older collectors, we'd buy every shoe. In 2002 maybe it was once a month that a shoe came out. Now it's like there's a couple every week, so it's impossible to get every shoe."

Even so, there will always be something to collect. Athletic footwear notched $12.4 billion in sales last year. Some will inevitably end up in the back of closets--to emerge 15 years later as sartorial gems.

 

[Johnny_Cakes]

Who is John Brilliant?

 

[tfromthe617]

that's dope

 

[toy collector123]

Who's John Brilliant?

Steez

 

[brilliant]

That would be me. As in.... "Last month, I was contacted by a reporter at Forbes Magazine..."

 

[18th letter]

Originally Posted by Toy Collector123

Who's John Brilliant?

Steez

computers pute

 

[Dragonflijones]

Originally Posted by Th3RealF0lkBlu3s

Who is John Brilliant?

Method's government?

 

[grimey]

 

[coolnificent]

 

[king beef]

You can't hide JOHN.

 

[fraij da 5 11]

WE MADE IT!!!

 

[mr718]

 

[neighb0rh00d]

 

[18key]

John Brilliant. Dopest name in the history of dope names.

 

[brilliant]

Originally Posted by 18key

John Brilliant. Dopest name in the history of dope names.

.

 

[thesouthside]

forbes

 

[mr718]

Originally Posted by Steez

Originally Posted by 18key

John Brilliant. Dopest name in the history of dope names.

.

There's some Jamaican dude at my job named, Ras-General Lynch.

 

[raffstylexx]

Cool stuff..

 

[and i love it]

Originally Posted by 18key

John Brilliant. Dopest name in the history of dope names.

No kidding.

Well any name with Brilliant after it would bedope.

 

[imsods]

niketalk been gettin alot of exposure as of late...admins on they grizzly forreal..

 

[eddie]

forbes is late on the sneaker game

.

 

[3miyasaki3]

...John Brilliant though

legit

 

[je ne sais quoi]

Originally Posted by 18key

John Brilliant. Dopest name in the history of dope names.

Well, it's no Max Powers, dope nonetheless.

 

[theprocessofbelief]

Originally Posted by Je Ne Sais Quoi

Originally Posted by 18key

John Brilliant. Dopest name in the history of dope names.

Well, it's no Max Powers, dope nonetheless.

Second that.

 

[swanginon4z]

Originally Posted by 18key

John Brilliant. Dopest name in the history of dope names.

i jus sat there and watched your avy about 10 times! lmao i bet fishnever knew dude was gone beast him like that! lol