Indian sneakerheads hail the Gucci x Adidas collab

It all starts with a little care and love for your sneakers and in no time it becomes an obsession. Well, this is not what happens with an average Indian, but with a lot of sneakerheads. And, if you are wondering what a sneakerhead is, here's all you need to know!

The most common definition of a sneakerhead would be someone who is a sports shoe or sneaker enthusiast. Since the brigade has multiplied in India, the sneakerheads have gotten divided into two groups - one who collect sneakers and one who trade them. The sneaker movement was anyway going strong across the world but with recent collaborations between popular sneaker brands and luxury fashion houses, the sneaker game has gone to another level altogether. The latest collab to make noise is the one Gucci recently did with Adidas. With so much news around it, we thought of speaking to some of India's leading sneakerheads on their thoughts about the collaboration of the year. Here's what they had to say.

The founder of The Mainstreet Marketplace, a sneaker reselling platform says, "Adidas and Gucci collaborating is nothing out of the ordinary in wake of Louis Vuitton doing an Air Force one, the years of Reebok and Vetements, Reebok and Balenciaga, so on and so forth. Luxury is now slowly and steadily realising, that true luxury lies in breaking all the rules, not following them. The widespread acceptance of rule breaking in the world of fashion is thoroughly enjoyable to witness, and I am extremely excited to see what is to come."

The Digital Content Creator Entrepreneur, Podcaster and Investor says, "Sneakers have become a part of mainstream culture, that’s why it's fantastic to see a luxury brand like Gucci tying up. Sneakers are here to stay and I think this collaboration says a lot more about street style making its way to the mainstream than anything, that’s what I’m taking away from this. It was about time that hip-hop culture, street style got celebrated in the mainstream and I think this is a good signal for that moment."

Founder of Your Food Lab and Digital Content Creator says, "Collaborations enable brands to flex their creativity & create designs never conceived before and build around communities. Collaborations do not put sneakers into the luxury category it just lets brands display designs which are never seen before. Sneakers are still approachable and can be bought as just sneakers and not as a collectible. It just depends on how far are you willing to spend on something which is available in limited numbers. Like with the Gucci x Adidas collaboration a Gucci x Adidas Gazelle sneaker will cost you USD 850 in retail vs a regular Adidas gazelle will cost you under USD 100. A regular Gucci sneaker also would cost around the somewhere above USD 850 so that price is justified with the Collab also being a limited release. Also if the collab pair demand is really high it will start reselling and it will cost you more. Now it depends on you as a customer if you are willing to pay that extra cost to buy that pair or you could still purchase a regular Gazelle under USD 100."

Founder of Figuring Out, Angel Investor, Podcaster and Digital Content Creator says, "Most of the things humans do are because of signalling, we want to signal/communicate who we are, what is our style, how much are we worth etc.

Sneakers are a modern way to strengthen the game of signalling, communicating a lot of things at once while walking around without saying a word in front of the world.

It has become more popular and valuable because it typically has some features like any other asset class, i.e.

1. limited availability of certain styles, the value goes up as more people buy and fewer pieces are available,

2. formation of reseller marketplace.

3. pop culture role models have been subtly promoting as they wear the limited ones, and sometimes are the reason why the prices go up.

4. Luxury brands are now collaborating to come up with their collection and making the sneaker market even more strong when it comes to the status quo.

It will be exciting to see how whether this new market of sneakers will get as mature as the art & collectables market one day or if it is only a trend because of certain role models and adoption by the social media savvy generation."