You might have seen the long lines of hopeful shoppers queued up around Pike/Pine in the past week outside Likelihood and BAIT. They were hoping to get their hands — but not their feet — on a pair of Sean Wotherspoon-designed Nike Air Max shoes.
We don’t know why. But we do know you don’t want to wear those shoes if you’re hoping to make a buck in the collectors market. Discerning collectors don’t want your worn, stinky sneakers. They want never touched, never tried-on dead stock.
“I’m what the city has been missing,” the mostly modest but occasionally boastful Parris Johnson tells CHS about the next step for his growing sneaker fashion venture. Johnson’s Dead Stock sneaker consignment shop is planned to be open by summer above Broadway and Pike.
“For Dead Stock, this will be the first store. We hit our max online,” Johnson told CHS when we talked to him earlier this week as he waited for his turn inside BAIT to score some Wotherspoons. “It’s a prime time location, we’ll offer buybacks, better return, cash out.”
After growing his business online and building up a sneakerhead-worthy inventory, Johnson’s first store will take over a chiropractor’s office space in the Harvard Market shopping center above QFC at Broadway and Pike. The plan is a kicks-packed consignment shop full of high end shoes and style. The look will be somewhere in the middle of vintage arcade, graffiti, and skater hangout. “We’re gonna make it a little more millennialish,” Johnson said.
The retail venture should help bring some new life to the upper level retail complex and parking lot also home to Marination, Ooink, and a Bartell’s,
The growing market around designer shoes means Dead Stock isn’t the only consignment game in town — or even the Hill. Restock offers sneakers and streetwear in the 600 block of E Pike.
For Johnson, his new store is a chance to continue building a business based on his obsession. “I’ve been in the culture for 15 years, camping out and buying the shoes,” he said.
Mannnn! Those sure we’re sweet times when we had G.O.O.D.S AND CAPITOL 1524. Y’ALL JUST DONT KNOW!!