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Turning An L Into A Legacy: dunkxchange

From left: Gary Hughes and Curtis Brown/Photo: John Gutierrez

What would you do if you won a heated online auction for a pair of Nike Heineken Dunk SBs, paid out your cash, and they just didn’t show up? Even worse, what if the auctioneer did send them and they wound up being cheap knock-offs? You just lost a small fortune to the web’s covert bootleg distributors. Like most people, you probably would fire off a limp complaint to eBay and take the L. But if you are like Gary Hughes, who created the nationwide sneaker swap tour dunkxchange, you would help fellow sneakerheads who share your plight.

After getting taken by multiple fake auctions, Hughes devised his signature event where sneaker fanatics can buy, sell, and trade new and vintage merchandise safely and under legitimate circumstances. Naming the event dunkxchange was important because it forever reminds sneakerheads of the dangers of Internet auctions. It wasn’t long until Hughes partnered up with fellow Los Angeles County resident Curtis Brown, owner of sneaker and apparel shop Soleger, and the rest is sneakerfiend history. We caught up with Curtis to give a little insight on his creation. Check the interview and more pics after the jump.

Complex: How did you get involved with dunkxchange?
Curtis Brown: Gary had done two shows before me in Whittier, California. At the first show there were no vendors, but a good amount of people and the second show had a good amount of vendors and no people. I was opening up a shoe store and called him and I just said “I want to do something with you.” We took two months to promote it. We had over 300 people and about 20 vendors.

Complex: Did either of you have any background in promoting or event planning, or was it just two guys hustling?
Curtis Brown: Gary used to do a lot of marketing for record labels. He was used to the marketing side of things and dealing with people. So it was all new to me, but Gary had experience doing it.

Vendors at the dunkxchange show in Brea, CA / Photo: John Gutierrez

Complex: Who sets the prices on the items each vendor sells at their tables?
Curtis Brown: Vendors pretty much know now the going rates of everything on eBay and Flight Club, and they go off that. We don’t tell them the prices, but we do suggest to keep it reasonable because if you don’t then there’s no point in even coming out. Most vendors stay true to Internet prices, but sometimes you get these people that are just tired of being in the sneaker game and they just want to get rid of everything and you can come up on some really good deals.

Complex: What do you think are the most valuable shoes that you have come across?
Curtis Brown: The most valuable I’ve seen at a dunkxchange has been the Eminem Jordan IV.

Complex: Will the recent ladies edition dunkxchange event in California become a nationwide tour?
Curtis Brown: We’re not going to do a tour just for females, because that would be extremely difficult right now. That market is still growing. But we have considered doing another one in Miami or New York.

From left: Curtis Brown, Murs, and Gary Hughes / Photo: John Gutierrez

Complex: How do you compare yourselves to other sneaker tours that have cropped up?
Curtis Brown: There’s really no comparison, because they just took our show and bit it. We are the original ones. Sneaker Pimps reached out to us to be a part of their show and I think when people like Peter from Sneaker Pimps reaches out to us to do something with him, that alone tells us something. We also add the element of true hip hop. We started doing performances with like well-known hip hop acts. We’ve dealt with the Pharcyde, Consequence, and Jeru the Damaja in Miami. We are keeping it underground hip hop. Not a lot of shows are doing that, and if they are doing it then they just followed in our footsteps. It’s not like they’re creative.

Complex: Does that make you flattered or annoyed?
Curtis Brown: It’s both. I appreciate you guys thinking that it’s a good idea, but I also think that if you’re going to do something, put your own twist to it. Don’t take the show that we started and we worked hard for and just put a different name to it and try to get by doing it. To me that’s extremely disrespectful.

Complex: They have to take down the kings to get recognition.
Curtis Brown: Right, exactly. And the thing is they don’t do anything different. I’ve had people call me and say “We want to do show like yours, can you help us out?” I’m like “I’d love to help you out, but you have to come at me with something completely different from what we’re doing.” The trades show is not a new idea, but please come at me with something different.

–Krista Travis

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