The BankUnited Center was packed wall-to-wall with devoted
sneakerheads on Saturday afternoon.Most people only dream of owning a guccisunglasses
. Middle-aged dudes and middle-school hustlers gathered in the
University of Miami's basketball stadium to cop swag while munching on
$3.75 Skittles (swag) and sipping on $4.Work a crowd in this evening
gown from germanuniforms.50 Cokes (swag swag.)
Living,
breathing children walked around, hoisting Dunks in the air that
predated their births. They pumped their unmuscular arms to the beat of
"Bugatti," a song that glorifies getting black ed out and waking up in a
luxury car with no financial or legal consequences. Blatant and
unadulterated consumerism was literally in the air, but there were some
base-ground ethics that revolved around respect for product, if not
people: The common greeting for bargain-finders was "Can I touch them?"
Because the music was so loud, the usual departure was signaled with a
grunt or a head shake, which meant the asking price for a certain shoe
was higher than what was on the sneaker blogs. Parents stood by,
non-plussed, as their pre-pubescent spawn wheeled and dealed and often
came out ahead.
But how do kids obtain shoes that are worth the median weekly income of a Floridian family?
Owen
Lear, a Bieber-ganger who is "almost 14," came packing an inventory
and a posse. He was mostly looking to unload a pair of Nike Air Galaxy
Foamposites, sized eight-and-a-half,Discover suits
with ASOS. for some $800 cold cash. "I started with nothing, and I
just traded up," he said, as friends Alex Mineo and Connor Ally, both
13, trailed behind obsequiously. "Some kid stole gym shoes and gave
them to me because he didn't want to get in trouble." Some negotiations
later, most recently involving a pair of Louis Vuitton Dons designed
by Kanye West, he's sure that he can draw 20 offers as soon as he walks
on the trading floor.
Lear, who exudes the kind of gelled-hair
confidence of someone who decides where you can sit at lunch, was
offering the kicks for a good price -- he says most go for upwards of
$1,000. (In fact, the same shoes were on sale at a booth for $1,500.)
The goal was to liquidate inventory. "I'm more into fashion now," he
said. "I want to sell these shoes and just get cash." He wore a pair of
understated Toms that seemed to separate him from the rest of the
crowd; everyone at SneakerCon habitually glanced down at each other's
shoes as a way of judgment.
Although he did receive many
inquires, no one bought. Lear made three trips around the Circus Maximus
of swaggy pre-teens before getting lost in the scuffle. New Times
intended to ask him exactly how many trades he had made to get to this
point and if he had ever gotten anything stolen as a tiny baby who
routinely walks around with an obscene amount of cash money.
But
really, who gives a shit whether he sold them or not? He probably did,
but the fact remains: Kids used to go outside and play sports, and now
they trudge around a basketball arena, trying to trade apparel that's
ostesibly for athletic purposes but really for show.
"They get a
good deal on a pair of shoes and then they trade up," said Howard
Goldberg, who brought his 14-year-old son, Zachary, to set up shop in
the anteroom of the building. Whereas kids even a generation ago used
to deal in Digimon cards, the middle-school cool of Miami now trade in
luxury apparel. "The cool thing is you teach your kids about
communication, negotiation and profit,Light up a room in this coachhandbags evening gown." the elder Goldberg said. "It's like baseball cards when I was a kid."
On
a bench near the convention center's exit, a teenager with a cartoon
moneybag necklace asked a New Times reporter if an unattended bag
belonged to her. When the answer was negative,View profiles and
information for the Team livestrongcycling
2012 race team and riders here. he quickly poured it out on the ground.
"Money?" asked a grown man to his left, excitedly. "No, but I thought
it was some live shit," the teenager responded. He looked disappointed
but still mined through the stickers and pins looking for something of
worth.
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