Sneakerhead Profile

The Mayor of Sneakerdom

A cautionary tale laced with obsession

By Elizabeth Dwoskin

• Gray Hamner

  

  Farese is an unusual collector: He actually wears his shoes.
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  At the Crash Mansion, even the sneaker exchange has felt the effects of a recession.

Mark Farese is a man with two feet and 1,400 pairs of sneakers. In his New Jersey basement, plastic shoeboxes line the floor in rows and stack up in six-foot-high walls. The boxes, custom-made for him in Japan, bear his nickname: "The Mayor."

More here... 

And do not miss this comment at the end of the story:

py on Thu Aug 27, 2009, 11:25:17, says:

Great. A celebration of rampant consumerism. Farese is a real hero – to Nike. Voice, why not look a bit deeper into the extremely sophisticated marketing tactics by large companies that use street culture to convince potential buyers that purchasing their products will make them cool? Or better yet, how about NOT doing a story celebrating Farese, and others who have swallowed the marketing of these companies hook, line, and sinker? The most insidious part of this whole scheme is that Farese probably doesn’t even realize he’s being manipulated. And he in turn, by acting as an “influencer”, is passing on this acceptance of consumption to others, especially young minority males. Now that’s good marketing! Buying sneakers for $800 and perpetuating this obsession doesn’t make you cool, but it does make you a pawn to a multi-national company. I’m sure Nike is down wit’ dat.