In the galaxy of basketball, the case caused a stir. In August, Michael Malekzadeh, founder of the platform Zadeh Kicks sneaker retailer was charged with fraud and money laundering. The 39-year-old scammer is accused of having defrauded thousands of investors, for damages estimated at 85 million dollars (87 million euros).
The “Bernie Madoff of sneakers”, as the American press calls him, promised his customers pre-order models in extravagant quantities and times. To compensate the defrauded investors, the police will have to put on sale no less than 60,000 pairs of sneakers recovered from the warehouses of Zadeh Kicks. How to destabilize the market? “Compared to the hundreds of millions that are sold each year, 60,000 pairs is really nothing »says Pierre Chambaudrie, CEO of the Courir group, which sold six million pairs of tennis shoes in 2021.
The numbers are indeed telling. It sold 91 billion euros of sneakers worldwide in 2021. In France alone, they have been close to 3 billion euros, with a growth rate of 8%, for three years. To the point that the sneaker now represents 60% of the shoe market, according to the French Footwear Federation.
“More teleworking, fewer opportunities to party have favored comfort” – Dorval Ligonnière, French Footwear Federation
A trend that the long months of confinement have confirmed. “More telework, fewer opportunities to party have favored comfort”, notes Dorval Ligonnière, research and marketing manager at the French Footwear Federation. In fact, in 2021, the two brands that monopolize the top of the basket posted record balance sheets: 46.71 billion dollars for the American Nike, 21.2 billion dollars for its German rival Adidas.
All prices
More than an everyday object, sneakers have become a social phenomenon, both an object of desire and a marker of identity. Popularized in the 1990s by the hip-hop community, the sneaker is now the rallying sign of those who signify their difference. Each tribe has its own boot. “Adidas’ Stan Smith is ‘I’m cool’, Nike’s Jordan is ‘I’m rich’”summarizes the collector Samuel Mantelet, a former Adidas.
Above all, the phenomenon crosses all generations. The teenager puts them on to be fashionable in high school, his parents, to run after the bus. Seniors now prefer them to orthopedic insoles and partygoers to waxed shoes. “Sneakers have erased dress codes, making it possible to overcome social barriers and blur the boundaries between the sexes, until they have become the emblematic object of a globalized cultural world”, summarizes Constance Rubini, director of the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in Bordeaux, who organized, in 2020, the exhibition “Playground. The design of sneakers”.
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