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The maximum I have ever spent on sneakers is $50 for a pair of Vans, a ridiculous low amount if we take into consideration Sotheby’s, the popular auction house, broke every record imaginable when in 2021, they sold for $1.8 million and via private sale the Kanye West all-black pair Nike Air Yeezy Grammy Prototype from 2008. 

According to Guinness World Records, they are the most expensive sneakers ever sold. The American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer known as Ye, wore the of Nike Air Yeezy 1s at the 2008 Grammy Awards, and they they soon became one of the most desired sample sneakers amongst collectors.

In 1984, Nike offered Michael Jeffrey Jordan and according to his biography in the NBA website “the greatest basketball player of all time,” a signature line of shoes and clothes, which ‘paved the way for many of the player collaborations we now see’, says Sotheby’s.

That same year MJ, wore a pair of the Nike Airship during a game that 37 years later would become the most expensive worn sneakers sold at auction when collector Nick Fiorella paid $1,472,000 for them at Sotheby’s Las Vegas in 2021.

It comes as no surprise that another pair of Michael Jordan’s old sneakers worn by the Chicago Bulls star in an exhibition game in 1985, sold for $615,000 in August 2020 at an online Christie’s auction, they were described as the “rarest of the rare” when sold. 

Crazy as this may seem to us plebs who work for a living to get by, the reality is that the rare sports shoes market is attracting the attention of collectors around the world willing to pay record prices for worn sneakers that they consider ‘art’ , not only that, sneakers are now sold as luxury items by major fashion houses.