My two boys want to visit the mall whenever they have free time. They aren’t compulsive shoppers, no. They desire to go look at trainers.

You won’t find these trainers in Foot Locker. Typically, these are limited-edition Nike trainers that cost $250 to $900 or more. Nike and ice cream manufacturer Ben and Jerry’s collaborated to create the Chunky Dunkys. And the Jordans from Space Jam. And dozens of other pairs of shoes, all of which are quite costly and that they all know by name.

They are ogling these sneakers online at sites like GOAT and StockX while they aren’t in the mall.

Which got me thinking: How did this trainer culture come to be? After all, I also want Jordan brand shoes as a child. However, I would wear them until they broke, and they cost $100. My boys now have a thing for shoes that are ten times more expensive than that, and they would never even consider wearing them and scratching them up if they ever received them.

For the most recent episode of my podcast, “Downside Up,” Elizabeth Semmelhack, who is the director of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, told me that it all began during the Industrial Revolution, when the very wealthy started to discover they had free time.

These “nouveau riche” businessmen want to demonstrate their success. Thus, the age-old sport of tennis was brought back to life,” Semmelhack explained. 

However, the first issue with lawn tennis is that because these fields are so costly, they didn’t want people scurrying around in leather shoes and tearing up the grass. Additionally, playing on a lawn can get your delicate feet damp. Consequently, the sneaker a footwear style with rubber soles was created so that the affluent could enjoy lawn tennis.

Because rubber was so costly back then, wearing shoes with rubber soles was considered a sign of prestige.

“Nike and Jordan, the timing couldn’t have been better. Jacques Slade, a sneakerhead and shoe writer, told me that it was precisely the perfect moment for that to blow up. It was “the inflection point of basketball hitting the up slope on the graph and sneakers hitting the up slope on the graph at the same time” that the world’s greatest basketball player and the largest sneaker brand partnered.

Even still, trainers were something you wore rather than something you collected for the majority of us.

All of that was altered by the growth of the internet, especially websites like eBay. Older shoe models were suddenly available for purchase and collection. Additionally, sneaker manufacturers embraced the trend, particularly Nike.

“I do believe that the fact that Air Jordan released a new model each year was one of the things that really changed the desirability around sneakers,” Semmelhack remarked.

Because the Air Jordan, which we now refer to as the 1, was so distinct from the 2, the 3, the 4, the 5, and the 6, it helped make collecting more justifiable. After all, if you already have the 1, 2, 3, and 4, you must add the 5 to your collection when it comes out.

Additionally, Semmelhack does not anticipate that sneaker collecting will end anytime soon. She even imagines it taking off into the metaverse.

“One of the main ways that we form alliances and [show] who we are is through our clothing,” she stated. Therefore, I don’t find it surprising that you might have a collection of virtual trainers that you can wear on your avatar when you enter the metaverse.