If you're not familiar, Sean Wotherspoon is a vintage clothing and sneaker collector who owns some vintage stores called Round Two. In 2017, he designed a shoe for Nike's Vote Forward competition, and won. The shoe had its official release in March of 2018 with extreme popularity and was eventually voted the top sneaker of 2018. The sneaker now resells for over $1000. It's called the Air Max 1/97 SW because it has the sole of an Air Max 1 and the upper of an Air Max 97. It channels Sean's passion for '80s culture while drawing influence from vintage corduroy caps, and his homes, Virginia and LA. Here's what it looks like:
Sean also has a toddler son, Nash, who is always rocking cool vintage and hype outfits thanks to Sean's years of collecting and experience. When Sean designed his shoe, he also made sure sizing went all the way down to toddler sizing so that Nash could wear them too.
However, despite all of Sean's efforts to put Nash in some of the coolest Nikes, Nash always seemed to just want to wear crocs. I witnessed a lot of this through Sean's Instagram and that's where the idea came from. I looked up kids shoe sizing charts, gave my best guess as to what size Nash would be, painted them like Air Max 1/97 SW's, and shipped them off to a Round Two Store in hopes that Sean and Nash would get them.
Sure enough, a few weeks later, I get a notification that Sean Wotherspoon tagged me in an Instagram story.
A few months later, I also ended up getting to meet Sean at Round Two New York which was an awesome surprise. He said that he has the Crocs on display on a shelf at his house.
I still don't have a pair of Air Max 1/97 SW's for myself, but they're definitely my ultimate grail, so maybe one day I'll sell all of my shoes just to get a pair of his.