How do you rate the sneaker market right now?
Christopher Blumenthal: We saw explosive growth from 2017 to 2022. Every shoe that was remotely popular sold out immediately and went up in price significantly. Now the sneaker bubble has burst a bit in the sense that mainstream demand has declined again. The market leader Nike in particular has relied a little too much on the same models and this has generally caused general interest to decline. There has been a bit of a lack of innovation and the market is fed up with variants of the same models. Next year it could be difficult and in 2026 the market could gain momentum again. After all, Nike and Adidas have now invested a lot to get things going again.
In order to bring movement back to the sneaker market in the coming years, many companies are investing more in the brand.
At the Meetnbuy sneaker trade fair in November, the tenor was that for the first time the sneaker market was also suffering from a difficult economic situation. Do you notice that too?
I can confirm that 100%. Demand has fallen and many people think that five or ten sneaker models are enough, but perhaps want to wait and see in the general uncertainty. But I wouldn’t call it a crisis; we’ve all been extremely successful in recent years. Because if there is a good model, it still sells out quickly. And when rapper Travis Scott releases a Jordan, there are still 100 people in line. The demand has remained the same. But underneath it is more widely distributed and the mainstream sometimes wears different shoes.