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WEAR YOUR VINTAGE SNEAKERS, YOU COWARD

The box might keep your grails clean, but it won't keep them alive. So what exactly are you saving them for?

BY  ADAM CHEUNG

I follow far too many sneaker collectors on Instagram. That makes sense - I write about them for a living. My feed is basically trainers, watches and people I went to school with announcing the birth of their third child. And every few days, a collector posts the same kind of video. They pull an old Nike box from a giant stack, slowly lift the lid, and reveal a pristine pair of Jordans from the '90s. OG paper. OG laces. Not a crease in sight. Then they lightly press a finger into the midsole, and the entire thing crumbles like a stale birthday cake. It's horrible. I watch every single one obsessively.

These videos are usually presented as tragedies. Here's a beautiful shoe that has survived three decades in 10/10 condition, only to suddenly die on camera like someone in the final 10 minutes of a David Fincher thriller. Except it hasn't really survived, has it? It's spent 30 years lying completely still in a cold, dark box, doing nothing.

The problem is polyurethane, a material commonly used in trainer midsoles because it's light and comfy and good at softening the impact of your feet repeatedly hitting concrete. Unfortunately, it also has a long-running beef with moisture. Over time, water in the air breaks apart its polymer chains through a process called hydrolysis, making the midsole so brittle that one gentle prod turns it into Parmesan.

Heat and humidity can speed things up too. Wearing polyurethane soles regularly may slow the process, but it won't make them immortal. But, the thing is: neither will keeping them in the original box, wrapping them in plastic, or whispering reassuringly to them every few weeks. Your spare bedroom is not a cryogenic chamber. While you're waiting for the perfect occasion, your grails are slowly turning into dust.

I was reminded of this recently while chatting to the guys at Block P, the Liverpool sneaker shop that only sells Air Max 95s. Founder Charlie McDonough told me about a customer who bought a 15-year-old pair after being repeatedly warned that they might fall apart the moment he wore them. The customer took them home, put them on, and returned the following day after they had done just that. He wanted his money back. McDonough had to pull up the CCTV footage of himself issuing the warning like evidence in a very niche court case.

I understand why collectors keep rare sneakers pristine. Condition affects value, and wearing something you spent years hunting down can feel like setting fire to a small investment with every step. But trainers aren't paintings or sculptures - they're clothes. They were designed to be laced up, creased, scuffed and stepped in something unpleasant outside a kebab shop. Keeping them immaculate until they become physically unwearable doesn't feel like preservation. It's just wasting a perfectly good pair very, very slowly.

Yes, genuinely historic sneakers belong in museums. A game-worn Jordan or one-of-one sample probably shouldn't be doing the weekly Aldi run. But most of us aren't professional conservators and calling a cupboard an "archive" doesn't give it climate control. That old general-release pair you're saving isn't the Rosetta Stone. Put them on.

Check the soles first. Walk around the house. Wear them somewhere. Let them collect a few creases, a few stains, and at least one decent story before chemistry catches up with them.

All sneakers die eventually. The sad part isn't watching them crumble - it's realising they never got worn at all.

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"Did anyone else watch South Korea beat Japan in the Asian Baseball Championship final? Not for the baseball - I know absolutely nothing about baseball. I was watching Japan's sick New Balance kit. South Korea won 2-0, but Japan won the fit. That's how scoring works, right?" -AC

"There's just something about this very specific shade of blue that speaks to me. Now that there's a bit of chill in the air and my summer jackets have stopped pulling their weight, Loewe's new coat feels dangerously easy to justify. Leather trim, a detachable checked liner, and a price that will keep me awake until spring. Still, look at that blue." -AC