That old pair of stinky sneakers at the back of your shoe cupboard — how much would you hope to sell them for? A fiver? Two quid? How about £1.8 million? That was what Michael Jordan’s old Air Jordan 13s fetched at Sotheby’s last month, setting a record price for game-worn sports footwear. These were the shoes Jordan wore during Game 2 of the 1998 NBA finals, the tournament that saw the basketball star win his sixth and final championship title. Sotheby’s have not specified if they have ever been washed.

Known as “breds” for their distinctive black and red design, these 25-year-old pieces of gym kit represent the booming sneaker culture whose collectors are willing to trade millions of pounds for sweaty old shoes. After that fateful game, Jordan gave his sneakers to a ball boy who worked for Utah Jazz — the losing team — although Sotheby’s would not confirm if it was he who sold the shoes last month. “We have clients in all different areas, from real estate, to finance to private equity,” said Brahm Wachter, head of Sotheby’s streetwear and modern collectables team, after the sale. “There are many people that are interested in this emerging market.”

Predicted to reach $120 billion by 2026, the sneaker market has exploded in recent years and now shoes regularly sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds. They have come a long way since the 1830s, when John Boyd Dunlop of the Liverpool Rubber Company first combined canvas uppers with rubber soles to make sandshoes, worn by Victorians on the beach, the tennis court and the croquet lawn. They later became known as plimsolls, due to their visual similarity to the Plimsoll line on a ship’s hull — of which the Green Flash version was worn by Fred Perry, the three-time Wimbledon champ, during the 1930s.

Cushioning came later — there’s much more padding on a pair of Air Jordans than Fred Perry’s plimsolls — as did their adoption by American hip hop culture, to which the current sneaker boom owes a debt. Zoë Vanderweide, of Sotheby’s, also cites the jogging and aerobics craze of the 1970s, which “ushered in a new and more inclusive era of athleticism — one in which fitness was fun and anyone could be an athlete”, ultimately meaning that trainers became a fashion statement. Sneakers have become so integral to the modern wardrobe that Debrett’s — the 18th century company which publishes a list of the aristocracy and a guide to etiquette — has now deemed them “appropriate for ‘smart casual’ occasions”.

“Whenever I now meet CEOs, top managers, or investors, the conversation quickly moves to the specific shoes they are wearing,” writes the luxury expert Daniel Langer, adding that sneakers are the male equivalent of handbags. “The brand, the collection (and how limited it is), and which colours to match with one’s suit become precisely calibrated decisions.”

The sneakerhead resale market — characterised by obsessive collectors who queue for days to buy limited edition shoes — represents $6 billion in global sales. Buoyed by the rise of online auctions in the early noughties, the luxury sneaker world at times feels comparable to the tulip mania of 17th century Holland. Receipts — not just shoes, but the thin scraps of paper proving a sale — of the Nike Air Yeezy 2 Red October were reported to have sold for $500 back in 2009.

A meta-industry has also arisen whereby premium stores sell shoes on behalf of their owners for commission. Presentedby, which has museum-sized outlets in Dubai, Doha, Riyadh, Mexico City, Paris and London, regularly flogs sneakers for $50,000. The average annual return, when it comes to investing in sneakers, can be tastier than crude oil and gold, according to one financial report.

Drake&#8217;s 24k gold OVO x Air Jordan 10


One-off sneakers worn by celebs have the greatest value — a prototype pair of Yeezys worn by Kanye West during his pre-Hitler days sold for $1.8 million. Various other collabs between Michael Jordan, Drake, and Eminem are particularly sought-after. By far the nerdiest pair are Nike’s MAG Back to the Future model, inspired by the robotically self-lacing shoes worn during the 1980s movie. A limited number have been made — about 1,600 in all — and they still sell for more than $90,000.

And the most expensive sneakers ever made? Perhaps it’s cheating, but it might be the Solid Gold OVO x Air Jordans, created by the American artist Matthew Senna, these are a one-off custom owned by Drake. Using 24-carat gold, these shoes are said to weigh 100 pounds, and thus utterly unwearable. More practical and affordable — if only in relative terms — are the Buscemi 100MM, a sneaker adorned with diamonds and gold, like some ornament from the vaults of the Vatican. Yours for $132,000. Just don’t ever stick a pair of them in the wash.

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