Streetwear fans wait outside shops for days on end, flexing their finest garms, all for a chance to get their hands on the latest items. But why? I went down to a sneaker camp out to find out...
I’m a self-confessed trainer and streetwear addict, but until recently I'd never really understood the attraction of camping out in the street all night to get my hands on the latest gear (I'd always been lucky enough to sit in my ivory tower and have my plug do the hard work).
Saying that, I have plenty of mates that do; they’ve braved the snow, sub-zero temperatures and sat outside for days on end.
I wanted to know what the appeal of sitting in the cold and rain for hours just to get a pair of shoes was, so I joined a queue for the Sean Wotherspoon 97/1 outside a Nottingham store to find out.
I hit up the queue at about 8pm, and there were already enough people there to take up the store's allocation.
Surprisingly, no one from the store was actually present, and it’s the shoppers themselves who organised the queues. They’d numbered themselves based on who’d got there when, and no-one argued with the watertight system.
Considering how competitive this process could have been it struck me as hugely mature and fair system - a world away from the drama of a club queue.
But then these guys are professionals. They all had camping chairs, umbrellas, heat packs and sleeping bags alongside the essentials: fast food, a football and, in one instance, the Paw Patrol edition of the board game Frustration.
‘Take that chair for a bit, it’s free. They’ve gone for food so we said we'd look after their bags,’ said one of my new queue buddies.
They set up Frustration. I settled in to the camping chair.
‘Paw Patrol edition?’
‘Yeah.’ Four of the guys laughed together. ‘That’s the best thing about Toys R Us closing.’
I might have rocked up at 8pm, but most of the guys had been queuing since 10am. Some had even been there since 6. So any entertainment was welcome.
Mid-game, some guy further down the street started shouting at what appeared to be his girlfriend. Everyone got up. 40 people made a pact to jump him if he hit her. The sense of community was real.
An hour or so passed and, if they hadn’t already, people went off to buy their next McDonald's (‘It’s a Hypebeast campout staple tbh, and it's monopoly init’), and we started discussing whether or not it was going to rain.
‘I was out here in the snow last week for the Atmos Nikes,’ one guy boasted. ‘That was fucking horrible.’
One of the usual faces rolled through. He’s not camping tonight. ‘I’ve got a pair secured. I don’t waste my time in queues now, I win raffles G.’
He says he’s just here to hang with his mates for a bit. ‘It’s cool man everyone’s out here.’ His mate kicks a football round in his Balenciaga Triple S's.
Up the road a queue forms outside another store for a different release. It’s a lot shorter with only four people, but we go over to see what the fuss is for.
'I’m queueing for Jordans. I just personally think they’re more valuable. I want a pair to keep and a pair to resell.’
I ask whether they think it’s worth being out all night with such a short queue and a high chance of rain: ‘I just wanna make sure I get them.’ Pure commitment.
A few beers down I decided to try and get to the bottom of the camping madness (drunken honesty and all that).
One of the guys touched on it being kind of nostalgic - like being 15 and getting drunk in a park with your mates or something. I got that.
Another added: ‘I dunno why we do it really. For the culture I guess. You just get to hang with like minded people.’
A third told me: ‘The shoe is pretty sick, and obviously there’s a certain amount of clout involved. You have that shoe, you get to gas about it. People know you know your shit. And I get to hang with my mates and play Frustration all night.’
And I saw their points, because despite the rain, I was actually enjoying myself.
Most of the people camping out that night were already my mates in the first place, but there were a few faces I didn’t know, and everyone seemed to get on and had a certain amount of respect for each other.
Plus it was cheaper and less sweaty than a night out. ‘I’d rather be here than be out and getting a bag in,’ one of them joked, ‘saying that though I’ve got to try and stay awake somehow.’
Images: Georgie Gilbert
