SO YOU WANT VINTAGE SNEAKERS? – kuyakoy

Nike Waffle City

Here you will find a good article with some basic background information to be considered when looking into owning your own vintage sneakers. Written by kuyakoy @ sneakerfreaker forum, it goes into some of the materials used on vintage sneakers, how these materials age over time and some storage guidelines.

“With the emergence and popularity of retro style sneakers, it’s imperative to acknowledge the fact that although retro sneakers give the look and feel and not to mention bring nostalgia to the table, it can not match the quality of the original. You don’t have to be an old person or grew up owning one to see the obvious differences e.g. retroes just don’t have the right shape, materials look cheap and build is sometimes not up to par. The alternative is to either get the original or the earlier retro version.

So you want to own a pair of vintage sneakers?” Read the article and contribute some knowledge.

The article has some great information that i don’t think has been written about before anywhere else on the web.

My own focus on selling vintage sneakers here, is to provide the members of my newsletter with mostly wearable vintage sneaker options, after all, i think the “sneaker game” still carries the age-old bboy state of mind – that its all about repping the colourways and styles, that no one else on the streets has (as apposed to storing them in a box). The integrity of the midsole in generally the most important part of the shoe when considering whether a vintage sneaker is wearable or not. PU (polyurethane) and EVA (ethylenne vinyl acetate) are both rubber material used for midsoles. PU is the material that you find goes yellow and splits and crumbles (example: original air max, 1987). My goal is to find for you, the best stock with EVA midsoles for wearability, this material often remains a clean white and does not crumble (example: original air huarache light, 1993), and i believe a similar compound is used for some of the lower end vintage sneakers that remain wearable (example: nike cortez, or nike waffle city). As kuyakoy states, ” EVA is less durable than PU but PU is stiffer than EVA so PU will crack and crumble when it loses its elastic properties over time.”