![]() He explains that as shoe consumption has increased, they have become harder to recycle. Originally from Spain, he worked in the marketing department at Zara’s parent company, Inditex, before switching sides to join Traid. Overseeing collection is recycling development manager Jose Baladron. This stuff has been manufactured all over the world, but is being thrown away because it developed a fault, no longer fitted, had fallen out of favour, or was no longer in fashion. The volume of discarded clothes and shoes is eye-watering. Metal shelves laden with boxes reach far up to the ceiling colour-coded sacks form mountains many metres high and rank upon rank of trollies stuffed with deliveries are lined up. Scale this up to the 24.2bn pairs of shoes that World Footwear estimates were manufactured in 2018, and they represent something more: the threat not just to one home, but to the planet.Īfter they lose their cultural value, what happens to all the shoes we don’t want any more? On an industrial estate in north-west London stands the large warehouse base of Traid, a garment recycling charity. For Helen and Luke, they have come at the cost of a comfortable home to live in. Unwanted trainers are now a certified global product. The people who make them often subsist on shockingly low wages: a family of four homeworkers in Pakistan, for example, may earn as little as 800 rupees (around £8) per day, while Syrian refugee children as young as six have been found employed as shoemakers in Turkey. The factories where shoes are made often contain hazards: a lack of fire escapes, poor ventilation and toxic chemicals. Basing value on symbolism, rather than usability, means it lingers for a brief moment before the shoe needs replacing, fuelling production and an environmental impact.īranded labels printed or sewn on to the outside of shoes might help to construct an identity for the consumer, but they are purposely blank in terms of how and where the shoe was made. A shoe that is “hyped” and worth hundreds of pounds at Sneaker Con one day can become worthless the next. In the global marketplace, labels have come to mean everything. Luke walks up to the stall shrugging his shoulders and frowning. Luke tells her they are an investment, but unless they can turn a profit, they have been a poor one. ![]() Helen says Luke has spent a lot of time investing in “one-off” trainers that are now being rereleased and are no longer unique. “Some are quick-strike releases: we’d be on a night out and have to pull over on the motorway to follow a Twitter link to get a pair of trainers.” “That’s why he had to stop,” Helen tells me. This expense has become a source of tension. ![]() The couple booked a table at Sneaker Con, where their stall is piled with trainers which cumulatively cost tens of thousands of pounds. When they began to invade her bedroom, Helen told Luke she needed some space. The shoes have filled up the loft and the spare room. She lives in a rented three-bedroom house on the outskirts of London with her husband, Luke, and his collection of trainers. One of the few women not chaperoning a child is Helen. Of the women here, many are the mothers of young boys. The attendees are approximately 95% male. The price tags on these shoes are not for the faint-hearted: £550, £600, £700. Thousands of sneakerheads have paid the £25 entry fee and are browsing merchandise stalls piled high with sneakers. I am at the London edition of the event, but it’s just been in Las Vegas, and is soon due to be in Berlin, then New York. Sneaker Con is an aircraft-hangar-sized convention that smells worse and worse as the day goes on. ![]()
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