Gary Vaynerchuk Wants You to Flip His New Sneakers
Gary Vaynerchuk - famed entrepreneur and social media extraordinaire - is dipping his toe into fashion. The media mogul collaborated with K-Swiss to create two original sneakers: GaryVee 001s and 002s. The 001s are Vee's take on the Court Frasco style, and the 002s are an Icon Knit. He revealed them officially at ComplexCon earlier this month. We caught up with Gary Vee to talk about sneaker culture, modern entrepreneurship, and what it's like to be the one sneakerhead who never copped an AJ1.
SHOP $85, kswiss.com
On exploring fashion as a creative outlet
I've been thinking a lot about how interesting, exciting, wild, and weird it is that entrepreneurship has become this cultural pillar in pop culture. My Spidey senses are always sensitive to opportunities to break into new ground on the back of what's happening with entrepreneurship. Being 42 - you know, on the verge of being 42 - and growing up on the East Coast, sneaker culture is kind of very top of mind for me. So working with K-Swiss was super intuitive; I was like, "This is a meeting I want to take."
On creating the shoe
A funny thing happens when I'm collaborating: If I know something, I'm really hardcore about it, and if I know nothing about a genre then I get really quiet. I was kind of more reactive to this. They showed me designs. They kind of showed me what we could do, and I was kind of more in the "yes, yes, yes," let me learn [what makes up] the sneaker I would wear. The green was a non-debate because I have to always give a nod to New York Jets, so my first book, my first sneaker, everything will always have green into it. I'm really kind of thriving now. Going into it, you're learning the shapes and sizes and fabrics and colors, so I knew maybe 50 percent on this one, and I'll know 100 percent going forward.
On the modern creative
There used to be an old adage that rappers wanted to be athletes and athletes wanted to be rappers. I think what's happening now is that rappers want to be athletes and athletes want to be rappers, but they both want to be entrepreneurs. There is clearly a very obvious current in society right now that, whether you call it entrepreneurial or hip-hop or urban or youth or millennial, there is enormous ambition across a lot of people under 40 years set to be a successful entrepreneur. And I think a lot of the entrepreneurs that look like me and I see them every day, 35 to 45, that have some traction, all of us were so impacted by street or urban or sports. We’re the byproducts of the '80s and '90s explosion of marketing and culture shifts, so there's a connection with the audience that's very real.
On the importance of sneakers
I think it comes down to the basic human need to communicate to other human beings, and shoes are such a glaring way to do that. If you really think about it, there are four pillars of a person: There's your head, your chest, your legs, and your feet. I think it's of those four where you get a canvas to tell the world who you are and what you're about at that moment. And I think a lot of people are captivated by the feet part of this all.
On the anti-Jordans lifestyle
I'm a huge Knicks fan and I'm 41, which means I hate Michael Jordan more than you could even imagine. I have never owned a pair of Jordans in my life. Recently, I came home and there were boxes of sneakers for my son to try out. (That's modern parenting, by the way: You order from Zappos and then you send it back.) I noticed from the corner of my eye that one of them was a pair of Jordans. I literally grabbed it and threw it down the garbage chute of my apartment. So, I'm an irrational Michael Jordan hater. Unlike almost all my contemporaries, I never owned a pair of Jordans or wore them so I was always an Air Force One guy. The only sneaker I ever begged my parents for was the Patrick Ewing Adidas sneaker that he came out with in the mid-'80s. I wore those super proudly, even though they matched none of my clothes ever.
On the buy-and-sell sneakerhead culture
If I were a kid that was 16 years old in the last 10 years, that's what I would have done for a living. My baseball cards selling is a complete head nod to sneaker culture-selling-flipping-buying. There are people that put things in a romanticized way and hate when there's commerce or capitalism overlaid to it. I go the other way. I mean, that is my sport. That is my passion. I love capitalism. I love the buy and sell. I would have been the kid that would have garage saled every weekend trying to find a beat-up pair of valuable sneakers to flip. I would have also been the kid that would have paid off my high school to stay in line outside of sneaker stores, and try to pay off every single stock boy in every Foot Locker across the country, and try to build relationships with the owners of every sneaker you know shop in Soho. It would have been my life. I'd be lying if I didn't say there's a real ambition for me to end up being successful and this sneaker thing to be successful so that these 001 and 002 are actually worth something in the secondary market. That is an absolutely romantic narrative for me in the back of my mind. Nothing would make me happier than if every pair was bought and flipped. I don't see that as a negative. I think that would be like me giving a head nod to the game that brought me up.
On his hope for success
To me, this is a perfect business scenario. I view this as a win-win. And if it fails, I always like to give some ammo to my friends to make fun of me and my hubris and ambition. So I thought it would be funny if it was a complete disaster for my buddies to say in 10 years, "Remember when you thought you were so fucking cool you could have a sneaker, you idiot?"
*Editors note: Since the interview, the shoes have sold out. Vaynerchuck's reaction: "It's always fun when you surprise people."
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