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The Business of Fashion Podcast

How Basketball Sneakers Got Their Groove Back

The Business of Fashion Podcast

The Business of Fashion

Fashion & Beauty, Business, Arts

4.6770 Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Performance basketball shoes have long been embedded in fashion culture, from the iconic Air Jordans of the 1990s to the stylised sneakers worn in NBA tunnel walks. But over the last decade, interest in basketball shoes waned as sneakerheads turned to minimalist silhouettes, running shoes and fashion collabs. 


Now, a new wave of signature athletes, innovative design from emerging and legacy brands and growing energy around the WNBA are bringing basketball sneakers back into the fashion spotlight.


In this episode of The Debrief, BoF correspondents Lei Takanashi and Mike Sykes join hosts Sheena Butler-Young and Brian Baskin to unpack what's changed, what's still missing and what the future might hold.


Key Insights: 


  • Basketball sneakers lost momentum with consumers when design became too functional and aesthetics too uniform. "All the styles just seemed kind of homogenous... There wasn't much difference there," said Sykes. "If you're not going to give us anything that looks different or anything that's unique, then people are going to go back and look into the past." This lack of innovation pushed sneakerheads toward nostalgic retro styles rather than new performance models.


  • New stars like Anthony Edwards and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are reigniting interest in signature sneakers, not just through performance but personal style and personality. "He's got the bravado. He's like everything that you want from a signature athlete," said Mike of Edwards. "A lot of these new players... they have this grip on the culture," added Lei, referring to how their on-screen charisma and tunnel fits are helping bring basketball sneakers back to relevance.


  • The women’s game has long been rich in style and creativity — a fact the market is only now starting to catch up to. "Just seeing the creativity and the colour that has always been around the women's game when it comes to the sneakers that they've worn," said Mike. "It just makes it all the more disappointing... if we saw what we see today maybe five or 10 years ago, then the market right now would be completely different."


  • In the past decade, attention shifted away from professional athletes and toward celebrity collaborators like Kanye West and Travis Scott. That dynamic is beginning to change. "From a brand perspective, the athletes just weren't the interesting players in the field," said Mike. "And so now I think the brands are circling back around and recentering athletes in a way that I think we haven't quite seen in a long time."



Additional Resources:



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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome to the debrief from the business of fashion,

0:10.6

where each week we delve into our most popular B-O-F professional stories with the correspondents who created them.

0:16.6

I'm senior correspondent, Sheena Butler Young.

0:19.1

And I'm executive editor Brian Baskin.

0:21.7

In the late 80s and 90s, performance basketball sneakers led by Nike's Air Jordan line became fashion icons in their own right.

0:29.3

These weren't just shoes you wore on the court.

0:31.3

They were cultural signifiers, status symbols, coveted collectibles.

0:36.0

But over the past decade, something changed.

0:38.4

While retro Jordans continue to dominate the resale market, actual performance basketball

0:43.4

sneakers, the kind worn by current NBA stars, lost momentum with mainstream consumers.

0:49.4

Now that might be starting to shift.

0:51.4

With a new generation of talent stepping onto the court and into the

0:55.0

fashion spotlight, brands are giving basketball sneakers a facelift. Today we're joined by B-O-F correspondent

1:01.1

Le Takanashi, who reported on this revival. And I'd also like to introduce to the debrief and to B-O-F,

1:08.4

Mike Sykes. Mike recently started at Business of Fashion

1:12.2

covering the intersection of sports and fashion. He's also the author of the Kicks You Wear

1:17.5

Newsletter, which if you follow sneakers, you probably already know. I've been a fan for years.

1:23.1

I consider it the authority on all things, sneakers, and sports and fashion generally.

1:27.4

We're actually bringing the newsletter in-house at B-O-F. If you'd like to subscribe, you can find out how to do so in the show notes. So hello, Lay and hello, Mike. Welcome to the debrief podcast. Thank you, Brian and Shin. It's a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to be here with you guys. Before we get into basketball sneakers, Mike, why don't you introduce yourself?

1:44.9

Tell us a bit about who you are and the kicks you wear. So I'm Mike Sykes. I'm the author of The Kicks You Wear. I am a sneakerhead. That is my passion. It's always been the thing that I cling to. I love sports. I am a sports journalist typically by trade, but I'm very excited to dive into

2:03.6

fashion with B-O-F. Amazing. And I guess the question, actually, this is probably a good question

2:08.2

for everyone here is how many pairs of sneakers does everyone own? I want to start with Mike,

...

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