Last year, Nike celebrated the 30th anniversary of one of its best-known and most-loved silhouettes, the Air Max 1, with a series of initiatives that included some blowout parties in cities around the world; a "Vote Forward" design competition of which Sean Wotherspoon—and his just-released 1/97 design—was the eventual winner; and a "Vote Back" initiative which saw one iconic Air Max 1 style rereleased. The style that was "voted back" was the atmos Elephant, and Toronto-based designer and illustrator Mike Sunday decided to add his own small contribution to the Air Max Day celebrations: a short animated video that paid tribute to the shoe's distinct elephant print and splash of turquoise colour, which atmos creative director Hirofumi Kojima has said was inpsired by elephants bathing in water.
Since then Mike has been creating unofficial animations to celebrate the releases of some of the most hyped shoes, including the Vapormax, the Tom Sachs Mars Yard, the Air Max 98 "Gundam" and, of course, Virgil Abloh's "Ten" collection. His vector-based animations combine insight about the origin of the shoe's name or design through their morphing appearance and slick accompanying sound effects: for instance, his take on the Nike x Supreme "Suptempo" not only pays tribute to Scottie Pippen, who made the shoe famous during his days playing for the Chicago Bulls, but also the fact that the collaboration represents a marriage between basketball and skateboarding.
"It's been really cool because I now have this feedback loop between my audience and myself," Sunday says of the evolution of his series. "People let me know what kind of sneakers they want to see and also what they are expecting to see, and then I can either fulfill that or completely flip the script on them. I think people sometimes take sneakers really seriously so I just try to do something fun and a bit more playful. I want to give people the experience of seeing the shoe doing something it shouldn't be, whether that's moving or transforming."
It's more than just his audience on social media who have been taking notice: Just one year after his original atmos Elephant animation, Nike tapped Mike to create some official work for it's 2018 Air Max Day campaign, one that was centered around the new Air Max 270 silhouette. The final piece is quintessential Mike Sunday: one part education and one part entertainment, wrapped up in great storytelling.
Being that he is a born-and-bred Torontonian with a passion for a well-told tale, we asked Mike to bring us around to some of his favourite sneaker shops in the city and share some memories and thoughts about each. Forever thinking in story-telling terms, Sunday chose shops that represent the past, present and future of sneaker culture in the city.
Goodfoot
"This is the birthplace of sneaker culture in Toronto. Long before the internet and digital and social media is what it is today, before you had media companies and blogs to aggregate content and information, people actually had to come to the stores to get that kind of information. You had to come to the stores not only to buy but to find out what was dropping soon. Goodfoot was THAT place for Toronto. It was part of a collective of stores—Goodfoot, Ransom and Nomad, and then when Stüssy wanted to open up its first Canadian location it also became part of that family.
Goodfoot was a bit of an intimidating experience. It was back when irreverent customer service was kind of a marker of the streetwear retail experience (laughs). Not a lot of people knew about sneakers in those days, especially because social media was not around. Basically if you knew a lot about sneakers, it meant you were probably pretty well traveled. The spread of information was kept to more obscure places like blogs and places like KanyeToThe.
This is where you could buy all the special releases and limited stuff that you could only really find in New York otherwise. Back then it was all about Nike SBs and Dunks. Some of the more outrageous styles and colourways that would be popular now just sat on the shelves then. Even something like the Atmos Animal Pack, which just rereleased—that wasn't popular the first time around.
This store closed in 2010, and the building where it existed is no longer here. I was still in high school when that happened, so overall the Goodfoot era was a little bit before my time. But this is an important place for the city, and a lot of people who went on to do really important things came up through here. This is where I bought my first pair of sneakers, and I still remember what they were: a pair of pinstripe Nike Blazers that were almost definitely not my correct size."
Livestock
"To me, this is the last true sneaker store in Toronto. It's a tough market now: even Capsule, which started as a sneaker store, has moved into apparel. Haven gets all the dopest releases, but I don't see them as a sneaker store per se; they are also very known for their selection of Japanese streetwear and the like. Although Livestock does have apparel as well, I think they are truly a sneaker store, and the last one of its kind,
I remember when they opened here on Spadina there were some rumors that there was some beef between them and Goodfoot because they were this store from Vancouver that moved into the city, and they literally setup shop just around the corner from that noted location with all those iconic and important stores. Those rumors turned out to be so untrue, but I guess it was kind of exciting at the time, in a way.
One of the things that sticks out to me when I think about Livestock is the lineups. Almost nobody does lineups nowadays and its mostly raffles, but I definitely remember lining up here. I think that no more lineups signifies a shift in the game and the culture overall. There used to be more of an understanding of community; you would never hear about riots or stabbings or anything in relation to sneakers, but now the reason they have to do raffles is mostly a safety issue.
I think it signifies a loss of respect for the culture and community. The resale game is another factor, obviously. Now there's a huge percentage of people trying to buy the shoes who never plan to put them on their feet. At the same time, I'm not going to say that I think the resell game is bad, or good. I'm definitely not going to complain about it because I know there are lots of kids who are making some good money reselling, and if they weren't doing that then they'd probably be doing something else to make their money. The hustle is the same as its always been, but the methods are just different.
There's for sure something that's been lost even from the days I remember lining up here. Not lost from Livestock specifically, because I think they've done a really good job at staying relevant while still preserving their own culture. But the sneaker game has changed a lot."
Haven
"If Goodfoot is the past, and Livestock is the present, then I think of Haven as the future of the sneaker shopping world, not just in Toronto but beyond as well. What they do really excellently, and what gives them such an edge, is that they create really great experiences and are really setting the standard when it comes to what people expect when sneaker shopping.
They also do have a really amazing online experience and a content-focused, content-first model. They make some killer content, from their magazine to the stuff they put up on their blog and their Instagram, and they work with some of the best talent in the city to make that content. But in addition to that, they have these experiential things that they are doing that are just incredible.
Looking back at, what is undoubtedly, the most hyped sneaker release of last year—The Off-White x Nike "The Ten" collection—and how Haven handled it is just really impressive. They got all the pairs; they ran everything proper and everyone felt like it was fair. I think that goes a long way in today's landscape. And historically they have always run things well: they blow out great installations, they throw killer parties and they build experiences that are centralized and meaningful to Toronto.
I think the chip on the shoulder for Torontonians still remains a bit because we still look to other cities like New York or Los Angeles to see what the creative trends are. But I truly believe if more brands and retailers like Haven start coming to the forefront, building their own identity, and using these shops as beacons or bastians of our local culture—kind of bringing it full circle to like what Goodfoot used to be—then I think we have a strong future here for the sneaker shopping experience."
