Best foot forward

COOL – the word pops up often when Kohei Hamada talks about why he loves and collects sneakers.

The Japanese entrepreneur is director of global expansion for Soda Inc – the parent company of SNRKDUNK, Japan’s leading customer-to-customer (C2C) sneaker platform – but has loved sneakers even before taking on his current role.

Originally from Tokyo, Hamada moved to Singapore more than six months ago and brought with him over 10 pairs of sneakers. Half of them have not been worn.

He has another 70 pairs of sneakers in Japan; again, half of them are brand new.

“I’m still waiting for the right occasion to wear some of the new ones – maybe on the first anniversary of the SNKRDUNK store in Singapore,” he says.

The platform recently opened its flagship store at Mandarin Gallery, the first outside Japan. 

Hamada finds sneakers “cool”.

“I love their silhouette, the colours and the different designs,” he says. 

He recalls first wearing sneakers when he was 14; it was a pair of red Nike Terminator “High Gradient” shoes which his parents bought for him.

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Four years later, he bought his first pair of sneakers, a pair of Air Jordan 5s.

Hamada says he now buys a pair almost every month. But this wasn’t always the case.

“When I first started working, I couldn’t really afford them,” he says. “I would talk a lot with my friends about sneakers, but only bought a pair every six months.”

The 30-year-old used to work at a brokerage firm, before starting his own company Monokabu, an app where collectors could sell new sneakers, in 2017.

“I left my brokerage job and started Monokabu when I realised that selling stocks and sneakers were quite similar,” he says. Monokabu has now become Japan’s second-largest operator in the sneaker market.

In 2021, Soda Inc acquired Monokabu. “We were competitors before, but it made more sense for us to merge to expand globally,” says Hamada. 

It was only a few years ago that Hamada started to get serious about collecting sneakers.

His first pair was the Nike Jordan 1 Bred, which he paid S$1,500 for. Hamada likes it not only for its red and black colourway, but also the story behind it.

The sneaker is nicknamed “Banned” because in 1984, David Stern, then the NBA Commissioner, banned Michael Jordan from wearing the sneaker as it violated the league’s strict uniform code that mandated only white shoes for players.

Nike capitalised on the opportunity and paid for Jordan’s fine, enabling him to play in the most rebellious shoes the league had ever seen.

“I don’t play basketball, but Jordan is the best player ever,” says Hamada. 

Most of his sneakers cost below S$500. “Anything more, and I usually give it some thought overnight,” he says. 

But some shoes are, for now, a dream for Hamada.

He had been eyeing the Louis Vuitton X Nike Air Force 1 Low by Virgil Abloh, and was even willing to fork out S$50,000 for a pair at an auction. In the end, the sneakers were sold for S$200,000. “It was totally out of my reach,” says Hamada.

The sneakers are kept in boxes, out of the sun, and lovingly handwashed with a special cleaner when necessary. 

Hamada recommends that new sneaker collectors start with shoes that they like, regardless of their colourways or silhouette. He’s noticed that collectors in Singapore tend to favour low-cut sneakers, while those in Japan like high-cut ones.

“Don’t worry too much about the brand,” he says, although he confesses that nearly all of his shoes are from Nike.

He occasionally sells some pairs from his collection, when “I find that they don’t suit me anymore”, he says. Sometimes, when a sneaker is particularly popular, Hamada hangs onto them for a little longer as their resale price would increase.

Some of his more unique pairs include the Sacai X Nike Vaporwaffle ‘Tour Yellow/Stadium Green Sail’, a collaboration with the Japanese fashion label. The head-turner sneaker comes with double laces, tongue and midsoles.

Another eye-catching pair is a collaboration between Nike and Union, a Los-Angeles based sneaker/streetwear company. 

The Air Jordan 4 Union Guava is the second collaboration between the two brands.

One of its unique features is the foldable nylon tongue, showing off the “Air Jordan” logo traditionally stitched on the tongue’s backside. “And also the cool colours the sneaker is in,” says Hamada.

He reckons that even if he wore all 70 pairs every day for a year, he would only be wearing each pair only five times.

Still that doesn’t stop him from wanting to collect more. “This is the same as women and their handbags. Sneakers are cool, and I’ll never tire of them,” he says.