Sneaker collecting has a tendency to jump from hobby to obsession in a hurry—even for the most novice sneakerheads out there. One pair becomes two, two becomes ten and before you know it, you've erected a city of Nike box towers that prevents you from exiting your bedroom without some Mission Impossible-style gymnastics (other signs you're sneaker collection is getting out of hand: your credit card number is memorized, you’re on a first name basis with the FedEx guy, you’re saying “Yeezy Boost” in your sleep).
The solution for too many sneakers should be to get rid of some of your sneakers, right? Wrong. Don't take the Hoarders clean-up approach to your preciously-curated kicks or Marie Kondo them down to a pitiful few, just get organized. In other words, get your shit together—literally. Sneaker collecting might be a young man’s game, but it doesn’t have to come with a young man’s tendencies to live like a 13 year-old. Instead, just follow these easy tips for maintaining your ever-growing sneaker collection, whether you wear your kicks to the ground or treat them like they belong in a museum.
Copping a new pair of sneakers is the easy part. It's sorting out the best way to store them that takes time. Growing your haul to supreme collector levels is a marathon, not a sprint, after all. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution either—the studio apartment-bound sneakerhead and the suburban hoarder will have drastically different methods. Instead looking for a master plan, focus on a setup that works for your needs in whatever space and layout you have.
There’s no point in treating the shoes you wear regularly like royalty. The soles will wear down, the leather will crease and crackle, and the midsoles will every stain imaginable (grass, mud, dank post-rain sludge). So separate the everyday wear types from the hard-to-find pairs you spent time and money tracking down and give those grail-level kicks their own home, preferably one that’s cool and dark, like a spare room/office or walk-in closet.
The worst fate of any sneaker is ending up trapped at the bottom of a hapless, disheveled pile. So raise them up with some shelving. A basic wire shelving unit will get the job done, but floating wall shelves similar to the IKEA Lack save floor space and protect them from both dust bunnies (you still have to dust them regularly) and freak floods (hey, you never now). Being able to see your entire collection at once is the easiest way to determine which are bound for the donation box and which you should offload for extra cash.
The allure of a banged-up box can feel like sneakerhead bait, especially if it contains a priceless vintage release. But if you’re more concerned with keeping your collection wearable for years to come, ditch the original boxes and invest in some containers. They do a shoebox’s job while prolonging a shoe’s life by protecting them from the elements known to cause damage—like air and humidity. Lots of collectors swear by these $3 clear plastic Container Store boxes. If the thought of reshuffling the stack every time you pick your kicks feels unbearable though, the drop-front versions offer easy access.
Storing sneakers in Zip Loc bags like leftover meatloaf might seem weird at first, but it's a surefire way to prevent, or at the very least slow down, the dreaded yellow sole. (Over time however, yellowing will occur due to oxidization no matter what you do.) While some prefer to seal their shoes away two gallon Zip Loc freezer bags, there are detractors however—armchair plastic experts—who say the chemicals found in the bags aren’t as helpful as you might think. According to a 2015 Wired piece, "The two things that make human life possible—water and air—are killing our shoes." So if you’re planning on saving your sacred pairs until they become collector’s items, the additional layer of protection, even if the bag isn’t fully sealed and acts as glorified tissue paper, can’t hurt. (Just be sure to open them back up every few months and let them breathe.)
Water is the main enemy of a sneaker's lifespan. Moisture in any from can turn a box-fresh pair of kicks into a mildewed mess and, when. exposed to high humidity, even the nicest sneakers crumble like a rookie quarterback facing an all-out blitz. To take matters into your own hands, get a dehumidifier. You want the air to be neither dewy nor bone dry, so a room with 55% humidity is the sweet spot to keep sneakers dry without suffocating them. Hit up the local hardware store with your room dimensions in hand and ask for a dehumidifier. A solid dehumidifier shouldn’t run you much more than the next pair of sneakers on your shopping list.
As with anything pertaining to feet, if you wear your sneakers they are bound to develop some stink. Foot powder like Odor Eaters or Gold Bond can work wonders in the right situation, but they leave behind an unwanted residue and have to be re-applied after each use. For a solution that doesn’t need a second thought, consider dryer sheets and stick them inside each shoe. Or if you wanna be a little fancy, spring for Damprid hangers, which last up to two months, wick away airborne moisture, and add a hint of lavender to keep your collection smelling pleasant.
Take regular inventory of what you’re wearing and what you’re storing. At a certain point in your sneaker grail gathering, you'll notice a few pairs just aren't getting the amount of wear you expected or worse, are just taking up space. Learn to let those go. List your least favorites on Grailed or eBay to recoup part of your initial investment. And because this is 2017 and there's an app for everything, you can also enlist a storage service like Makespace, which offers free home pickup and Goodwill donations. You can also donate them to a good cause such as Soles 4 Souls, or just trudge to the nearby vintage store and drop them in the donation box.
(Our go-to hack to figure out which ones we should give up on: every time you wear a different pair of sneakers, rotate them in the opposite direction before you put them back. After six months or so, review which sneakers are facing which direction and determine their fate from there.)
If your current situation is overflowing from an influx of new purchases, there may be no other option than relocating to an actual storage unit, especially if you live in a shoebox-sized apartment in a major city. In that case, do your research and track down one, but make sure it's climate-controlled. Most units are temperature controlled, which is good for ensuring the summer heatwave doesn’t hit your shoes, but again this is all about managing the humidity. While climate-controlled units may cost more per month, not having your sneaker soles turn into a crumbled mess is worth the additional investment.