Streetside: Treading lightly into KC SneakFest’s shoe nerdvana

I went to KC SneakFest hoping to snag some tricked-out gym shoes. That plan hit the skids when I spotted the Air Jordans. They cost about $1,000.

An event Saturday, June 20, claiming to be the Midwest’s largest sneaker expo filled the Kansas City Convention Center with thousands of shoes — table after table of seriously impressive kicks. No such assembly would be complete with limited-edition Nikes, and the ones here were splattered with colorful camouflage, shining like solid gold or seemingly made out of cork.

Large, handwritten signs reminded me not to touch the shoes, but when I saw a pair covered in faux leopard fur, I barely hesitated to violate the directive. As I stroked the toe, I imagined what would happen if you wore these on a rainy evening or stepped in a mud puddle the next morning.

And then there they were, those epically expensive Air Jordans. Looking at them, I understood: Nobody else was here to find a little workout-time eye candy. This was about aficionados, curation, display. Status. Nobody else here was wearing five-year-old Old Navy flip-flops.

My boyfriend grew up during Michael Jordan’s heyday, and his being among these shoes returned him to that covetous time of the initial burst of Air Jordan frenzy. For the serious shoe nerds at SneakFest, those days are still going on. If he had spent the time since then maintaining a few still-in-the-box pairs of AJs, perhaps he could have traded for something here. Alas, we were the odd couple out, and we settled for admiring a very un-Michael Jordan pair of light-up Back to the Future space boots.

Oh, yes: This year’s SneakFest theme was “Kickin’ Through Time.”

“How much do you want for those?” my boyfriend asked the spaceman.

“I was thinking $800,” he replied.

We kept moving.

I was glad to meet Kyle Stanley, of Alzado Co., an Olathe artist who hand-illustrates canvas shoes such as Converse and Vans. His SneakFest offerings included likenesses of Edgar Allan Poe and Albert Einstein, and characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas. This stuff did not cost $1,000. (According to the Alzado Co. website, you can get a pair for $120.) The vibe was somewhat homier.

“One woman brought us pictures of her grandchildren, and we did portraits,” Stanley’s assistant told me.

“I’d be afraid to wear them,” I said.

The assistant stepped out from behind the table and pointed at her feet. She wore a nearly immaculate pair of Alzado Co. shoes. “I’ve had these for about four years,” she said. “They hold up pretty well.”

I also ran into Off Days Customs, which sells hand-illustrated and customized shoes and other accessories by 19-year-old Kansas City, Kansas, artist Big Tuss. His stuff favors superheroes and images of football and basketball stars. Like everything else at SneakFest, these were conversation pieces, but you’d have the conversation while wearing the shoes out in the world.

After wandering around for about an hour, my boyfriend and I headed home to tend our Birkenstocks and Crocs. There’s no curating comfort. But it’s never too late to start saving up for the right Air Jordans.