Going After Nike

When I was done at Adbusters headquarters, I met Billy Li, who also lives in Vancouver. Li, who is 26, is another sneakerhead and contributes photographs to Freshnessmag.com. He's a meticulous consumer, knowledgeable about high fashion and street trends, but he hadn't heard about the Blackspot, and he didn't seem particularly impressed. Converse knockoffs? Those shoes weren't even comfortable. And only in one color? He showed me his collection of hundreds of pairs of sneakers, most stored in their original boxes. We spent a good half hour looking at the dazzling array of materials, colors, styles. It was like getting a tour of a connoisseur's art collection. Needless to say, more than 95% of Billy Li's collection is Nikes.

Later we went shopping. We went from mall sneaker shops to high-end department stores to exclusive boutiques that straddle the line between retailer and art gallery. The Swoosh seemed to pop up everywhere. And while Nike will not comment specifically on its strategy with the Converse brand, the number of color and pattern styles available for "real" Chuck Taylors has increased markedly over the past year. When I mentioned to Li the unusual materials in the Blackspot, he showed me some Nike hemp models: The Nike division focused on skateboarders has actually produced such shoes. Another Nike division is experimenting with a variety of environmentally friendly materials. There is an awful lot here to uncool.

Nevertheless, Lasn seems buoyant. "The idea of pushing your way into the capitalist game and tussling with people like Phil Knight and taking some of the market share, I would argue this is one of the strategies that angry people, like me, have of changing the world for the better," he says. "Rather than always snapping at the heels of the people who are playing the game, let's get into the game. I think that it's possible to produce a logo like the Blackspot that stands for something real. If we can do that without selling out ourselves, then we're doing the right thing." And what about the real-life sneaker consumer, from the casual buyer to sneakerheads from Bobbito Garcia to Yu-Ming Wu? If they find "something real" in their brands of choice, who's to say they are wrong?

"I'm to say they're wrong," Lasn declares.

Sidebar: The Hunters

In search of the world's coolest sneakers

Freshnessmag.com may or may not meet Kalle Lasn's definition of "grass-roots capitalism." But the project by two young New Yorkers, Yu-Ming Wu and Danny Hwang, certainly comes straight from the grass roots -- and offers an interesting take on how a passion can turn a consumer into an entrepreneur.

Hwang grew up in Queens, Wu in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. The two met at Parsons School of Design in Manhattan, but really bonded while exploring the nearby Lower East Side. A lot of what they did there was shop -- or as Wu puts it, "collect." Hwang was interested in urban art and graffiti; Wu had a very intense interest in sneakers. "Sneakers are huge in the urban market," he says. "Some of the artists who do graffiti art have done sneakers."

Because it's not easy to figure out where to find the coolest stuff, Hwang and Wu started Freshnessmag.com a year ago to share the information they gathered about their obsessions -- from art openings around the world to exclusive photographs of prerelease sneakers -- and to build an audience around it.

Wu is a kind of superconsumer; he calls himself a "hunter" and loves seeking out limited-edition Nikes, gathering information on new offerings and where and when they'll "drop." I went with him one day when a rare model called the Nike Laser -- a series of shoes decorated with an unusual laser-etching technique -- was set to be released. There is never a formal announcement for these events, let alone an advertisement; word just gets around. We met on the Lower East Side, outside a store called Alife Rivington Club, which has no sign and requires customers to press a button and get buzzed in.

As we dashed from one shop to another -- mostly obscure stores I'd never heard of, although the fashion store Barneys has started getting some limited-edition Nikes -- Wu kept bumping into fellow travelers through the world of exclusive sneakers, trading information here and there.

In a sense, the hunt is what Freshnessmag.com is about. The site has helped Hwang and Wu pick up invaluable contacts around the world. Wu has even been hired to design a Nike website, and in July Hwang moved to Taipei to work as a design director at an electronics company -- although that's not the end of Freshnessmag. In fact, the pair recently made their first moves toward converting their passions into profits. They are using their connections to launch a line of T-shirts under the name Acquired, and they collaborated with a Singapore-based artist and "sneaker customizer" called SBTG, who made a set of custom Nike sneakers that went on sale exclusively through the website at $350 each. All 18 pairs sold out in 10 minutes.

Rob Walker wrote about "The Buzz Guru" in Inc.'s March 2004 issue.

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