Hi everyone!
Today I wanted to research a topic that I thought was interesting. If you have seen my other posts, you will know that I have written about visiting my university’s historic collection of apparel and the art museum on our campus. These two recent experiences have got me thinking deeper about what it means to have a collection of artifacts and how to take care of it. Then, that idea got me thinking even a little deeper. I now know why museums, universities, and individual curators collect artifacts, such as historic apparel (which includes shoes) but this made me wonder why do individuals like you and me collect shoes? What are the elements that make someone a shoe collector? How many shoes is a collection of shoes (because if it’s not too many, then I probably have a collection of shoes as well without even really knowing it).
Since I didn’t have the answers for these questions, I went online and researched why people collect shoes and what motivates them to keep doing it.
I was somewhat surprised by the answers I found.
I learned that there are ‘genres’ to shoe collecting. What I mean by this is there are different types of shoes that people will collect in large amount. Normally, that would mean that this person would have just one type of shoe that would be their favorite to collect. Someone is a shoe collector if they collect, trade or sell, or just enjoy a type of shoe. The largest genre of shoe collecting that I found was sneaker collecting. A person who collects, trades or sells, or just enjoys sneakers is a sneakerhead. They either collect these shoes as a hobby or turn it into a career, or some combination of both. I learned that because they are so experienced with the shoes they love, many sneakerheads are able to distinguish any pair of sneakers between a real one to a fake replica. I learned from one article that 200 pairs of sneakers is a mere start to a sneaker collection. This amount exceeded my expectations, especially because it continued to say that thousands of pairs of sneakers within one person’s collection is much more respectable.
The part that is still somewhat unclear to me is how shoe collectors are able to financially support this hobby. Many of these shoes that hardcore collectors are obtaining are rare, designer pairs. I would think in order to sustain their collection, the shoe collector would have to continually sell part of their stock as they brought in new stock just to keep up with their buying habits.
Most of the research that I found revolved around sneaker collecting. But if you think about it, you can swap out sneakers for boots or heels and still understand why people collect these types of shoes in the large sums that they do. The appeal is the excitement. I would guess that the best part of collecting the shoes is the first time you get to see your purchase in person. Many of the very expensive pairs of shoes that people collect are never worn, or even taken out of the box, in hopes to maintain pristine condition. As a fashion merchandising major, this aspect of the shoe collecting is interesting to me. These items are intended to be worn, but because they can hold such high value, they are often referred to as art rather than an article of apparel.
This thought process is much different than the process behind the clothing and shoes that I have seen in collections on Ball State. Most of the collections here are very worn pieces of apparel, but they are still regarded as art because of the story they tell about the time period they were worn in and who was wearing them.
I would definitely love to see a real-life shoe collection from one individual person who obtains them as their hobby or job. I think that would be the only way I could really understand the magnitude of the monetary value and hard work that shoe collectors put into their collections.
Another interesting, but random fact I learned from researching shoe collecting is that Carnegie Mellon University has offered a course that studies the history of sneaker collecting and it’s called Sneakerology. I wish that my university would offer that course in our fashion merchandising program because that is something I would definitely be interested in and it is different than anything we have now.
I hope that you learned something interesting from my post today.
Until next time,
Anna
Sole Mate Shoes 