The Russ Report: New Sneakers Are More Important Than Collaborations — Finally

Sneakerheads used to clamor for exclusive sneaker collaborations but that's no longer the case.

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If the Complex office serves as some sort of microcosm of the sneaker community at large, yesterday was quite the day. Both the new adidas Yeezy Boost 350 and the latest Nike Sock Darts hit the market, and there was much grumbling (and gloating) over attempts made to acquire either (or both) through various means. To be sure, this was only a reflection of the sneakerhead portion of the market, but it’s significant nonetheless. The rest of the conversation centered around the “Shattered Backboard” Air Jordan 1 retros.

that’s what the Colette x ASICS Gel Lyte III represents now — the kind of sneaker people bought to collect, not to wear.

Then there’s the release that everyone seems to have forgotten.

I’m talking about the colette x ASICS Gel Lyte III “Dotty,” an all-over polka-dotted blue and white take on the ASICS classic that drops this weekend as part of the ongoing 25th anniversary of the silhouette. Sure it’s a collab with a Parisian shop that won’t actually be available worldwide until Sunday, but years ago—back in the collab heyday of the early to mid-2000s, say—the “Dotty” would have been the sneaker of the weekend. Even in a world that’s supersaturated with collabs now, this is one of the rare ones that makes sense: Everything about it was done right. And still.

Are collabs really this over?

It’s not that simple, obviously. After all, there’s another Gel Lyte III dropping this weekend (the Wale x Villa “Bottle Rocket”) that has been getting attention. But it does seem as though the Euro shop x runner collab is no longer held in the same high regard it was as recently as 10 years ago, when the likes of Patta Air Maxes and Crooked Tongues New Balance topped all kinds of most-wanted lists.

Oversaturation is part of it (both in terms of collabs and sneaker releases in general), so is accessibility. Now that everyone can get them without needing a Euro connect, they’re just not as special anymore.

Here is the positive part: People actually seem to be more interested in new silhouettes than ever, at least in the retro era. For those who don’t want to see retro simply become an endless cycle of re-retros of shoes from, say, 1985 through 1996, this is important. If retro nostalgia is half based on the shoe itself and half based on people’s own memories they created while actually wearing the shoe, new models need to be more than something people buy and stash. You need to actually wear a shoe to get a real feeling for it outside of whatever some blogger (er, like me) tells you to feel.

Why would anyone buy a retro of a shoe that they just bought, Instagrammed, and shoved in a closet?

And maybe that’s what the Colette x ASICS Gel Lyte III represents now — the kind of sneaker people bought to collect, not to wear. Maybe people want to spend that $200 on something they can wear every day — like the Yeezy or the Sock Dart — instead of on yet another collab whose primary reason for existing is that a lucky few can say, “Yeah, I got those.”

Everyday wearability back? I can’t be mad at that at all.

Russ Bengtson is a senior editor at Complex. 'The Russ Report' appears every Friday and you can read previous columns here​.