Got Sole convention attracts ‘pure sneakerheads’ with plenty of Philly flair

At Got Sole, everyone can be a sneaker salesman — whether they realize it or not. One vendor’s sign read “Sneakers are an asset class. Invest today.”

Attracting hundreds of vendors from around the country and more than 5,000 buyers who come to buy, sell, and trade sneakers, the convention has come to several cities in the United States. After getting its start in Boston, this was the event’s first time in Philadelphia.

Some local vendors, like Status, a sneaker and apparel shop on South Street, were at their first Got Sole convention. Others, like Rock or Stock Shoes based in Athens, Ohio, are regulars at sneaker events like these.

» READ MORE: ‘I’ll never stop’: Collecting sneakers can be ‘a source of joy’ — or provide some father-son bonding

Vendors weren’t limited to just the tables. Many buyers lugged around large carts filled with shoeboxes, ready to buy, sell, and trade with others in attendance.

“You’re going to get a pure sneakerhead at an event like this,” said Jordan Green, owner of Status. “It’s a lot more of a hustle. You’re going to get people coming in here, if you’re a seller, you’re going to have people who want to negotiate a lot more. If you have a store, me, in general, I set a price, and my price is my price. That’s the difference, the sneaker energy is a lot higher.”

That intensity was on display as Mike Varallo, owner of the Premium Shoppes on South Street, negotiated with an energetic buyer, looking to take home several pairs of shoes. At Got Sole, many shoes are less expensive than they are at retail or on the resale market, but Varallo said he keeps the price he paid for each pair of shoes top of mind, to ensure he at the very least gets his money back on each transaction.

The buyer, dragging a large cart behind him, consulted online reselling sites to get a sense of the value of the shoes, as he and Varallo went back and forth. Ultimately, the buyer spent $530 on five pairs of shoes.

“I have my price, people don’t want to pay it, that’s normally how it goes,” Varallo said. “It really depends on where I’m at financially from week to week. Sometimes I’ll sell stuff for what I paid so I can reinvest, sometimes I’ll hold out and try to make every dollar I can. ... If I’m making a couple of bucks here and there, it adds up at the end of the day, and it’s less stuff for me to leave with. Sometimes I’ll just let it go for whatever they offer.”

Many of the vendors started collecting sneakers at a young age. Brian Dein, founder of Jawns on Fire, a Harrisburg-based mobile sneaker vendor, got hooked on sneakers at age 10 when he saw the original Jordan shoes. Sneakerhead culture wasn’t as established back then as it is now, but Dein finally made a career out of his hobby much later in life, starting Jawns on Fire in 2021.

Dein had one of the largest collections at Got Sole, including a massive array of the new Travis Scott Nikes in the canary colorway. But one of the best parts about a convention like Got Sole is getting to see rare, unique sneakers, and Dein’s favorite in his collection was the Skeletor Nike SB Dunk, a short-run shoe inspired by the show He-Man: Masters of the Universe. The shoe sells online for more than $3,000.

Got Sole isn’t just a place to buy resale shoes. One vendor, Jim Buck, from Levittown, sold his own custom shoes. They were so high quality that one customer criticized Nike for making another brown sneaker — not realizing the shoe he’d just insulted was handmade by the man sitting behind the table.

» READ MORE: The five best sneakers we saw at Got Sole’s sneaker convention in the Philly area

Buck is a graphic designer who started off making prints and T-shirt designs before starting on custom-painted shoes, and now he makes his sneakers by hand.

“I usually start on the iPad,” Buck said. “I’ll make a different colorway and then I’ll just work on it until I get the right colorway, and then I’ll sit on it for say, two weeks to a month, just to make sure I got it right. If I still like it after two weeks or a month, then I’ll probably go through with it. I try to do a lot of concepts. These Eagles shoes came out when we went to the Super Bowl the first time [in the 2017 season], then these came out at the start of last season. I try to go with themes like that. Rainy Days came out in April, April showers, and they all have a different story behind them, some more sentimental than others.”

During a hard time in his life, Buck challenged himself to design one new shoe every month.

“I wanted a pair of Travis Scotts at the time, and I didn’t want to spend $1,000 on a pair of shoes,” Buck said. “So I was looking it up, trying to find it for cheaper or whatever, and I ended up finding a pattern for shoemaking. I was like, ‘All right, I have a sewing machine, I’ll try it out.’ I tried it out. It came out terrible, so then I just tried and tried again until eventually I got it together.”

» READ MORE: The story behind the Nike ‘Philly’ Dunks, featuring a color-changing swoosh and plenty of local Easter eggs

Buck’s most recent shoe design is a baseball design he made for Father’s Day, with two-tone brown leather in the shades of his and his dad’s baseball gloves growing up, with a custom logo in the Phillies’ font on the back.

Philly flair was present all across the event, with other vendors selling Philly sports jerseys, T-shirts, and lapel pins. Several tables had both versions of the Philly Nike Dunks — the 2023 powder blue Phillies colorway and the gray colorway released in May. While most think of New York and Los Angeles as the top sneakerhead cities, Got Sole showed off Philadelphia’s unique scene.

“Just true to the culture of Philly,” Green said. “Philly’s going to be Philly. Everyone is very organic, they do what they want, where they want, and I think they express that well through the sneakers they wear.”