cover created from images from dean.hilario

Here’s the Top 10 Sneakers you saw on Moodboard Instagram in 2020. Moodboard Instagram consists of Hidden.NY and a bunch of copycats. What’s important on Moodboard IG is authenticity, or at least plausibly faking that you were there.

If you want to start your own Moodboard Instagram, here’s what you need:

• plants
• lots of green, natural grey
• patina / yellowed soles
• old Vogue Italia magazines
• fleece
• master the 📐 angle shot
• wide leg pants
• good bedsheets
• convincing your girlfriend to become your photographer
• wooden furniture
• links to old Tumblr accounts people forgot about
• natural lighting
• persian rugs

Advanced Moodboard IG Only:

• anything Aphex Twin
• Kiko Asics
• Reebok Club C Adsum
• Virgil Louis Trainers
• Bapesta Mules

So get started and tag Hidden.NY and hope he reshares.

Mood Break

Before we begin, lets’s set the vibe and stop and appreciate the Visvim Kerchief Jacket in case Drake reads this.

10. Reebok Beatnik

Confess, you thought #muleboyz was a farming hashtag when you first saw it.

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9. Nike Stussy Air Force 1 / Air Zoom Spiridon Cage 2

Look, we didn’t wear any Stussy in 2019, that’s not important. What’s important is we had Stussy in 2020 when others were watching and when it counted.

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8. Nike Dunk High

It was mostly Spartan Green, Natural Grey, Syracuse, and some Michigan. The more vintage the better. Kentucky blue just not a moodboard colour sorry Wildcats.

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Mood Break

Let’s pause to appreciate some architecture from an old magazine for no reason at all.

7. Fugazi One in the Chamber

Customs and Knock-offs approved by Moodboard Instagram, especially these Fugazi in Natural Grey.

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6. Notre Vans

Your girlfriend just wanted to go back to work but it’s important she got the 📐 right 🤝

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5. Nike Dunk SB Low Stussy Cherry

The only SB Dunk that truly mattered on Moodboard IG.

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4. Air Jordan IV

Particularly Metallic Green, Linen, Military Blue, even Breds. Metallic Purple? god no.

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Mood Break

Here’s MF DOOM to prove we listen to rap.

3. Old Jordan 1s

The goal is to show, even if we weren’t there, we have the authentic Jordans to wear with our Plisse pants.

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2. JJJJound New Balance 992

The Moodboard Gawd himself, JJJJound.

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1. ALD New Balance 550

GTFO here if you don’t have all 4.

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Honorable Mentions:

- Lebron Media Day and Laser Orange 3: both expected to shoot up after Lakers chip, never did. Still hit in big sizes
- Zion Coloring Book: Bayou Brick
- AJ1 Mid Union: Not hitting yet, but will eventually. Everyone & their mom holding pic.twitter.com/CrA9RBgpVP

— sockjig (@sockjig) December 14, 2020

15: Reeboks: Brain Dead, Sneeze Mag, EE

We weren't expecting much from Reebok this year, so it's nice they made so good shoes. These had potential and some good early sales, but by the time you got in hand were bricks. pic.twitter.com/QN7z4UQy6q

— sockjig (@sockjig) December 14, 2020

13. Jordan 13 Retro White Soar Green Pink GS

One of the early signs that the stimulation money was drying up. For once all the NYC quick flippers that hang outside VFiles made the right call. pic.twitter.com/SYHwzNgz6c

— sockjig (@sockjig) December 14, 2020

11. Nike Air Max 90 Duck Camo Orange

Sometimes it's important to consider that maybe most people just don't want to wear an orange shoe. pic.twitter.com/5P2u4TRjP8

— sockjig (@sockjig) December 14, 2020

9. adidas Yeezy Boost 380 Pepper Reflective

Really any 380 can be put here. Everyone quickly realized that 380s are a flop. The only people who made money on this shoe are the boutiques who paid wholesale and sold on apps for slightly under retail. pic.twitter.com/2zg3ohXHvR

— sockjig (@sockjig) December 14, 2020

7. Nike Dunk Low Comme des Garcons Black (W)

It's a Dunk, it's CDG, how can this shoe fail? CDG high retail thats how. Also that plastic upper. pic.twitter.com/I3ycJUNoag

— sockjig (@sockjig) December 14, 2020

5. Every Jordan 5: What The, Oregon, Bel Air, Top 3, Grape

Most of these came out at end of the stimmy check high, and after The Last Dance buzz had faded.

Maybe if you lived in a no-tax state or if @ArmenianKicks cashed you out, you made some $. Big sizes will eventually flip. pic.twitter.com/iLfNIAef45

— sockjig (@sockjig) December 14, 2020

3. Crocs Classic Clog Bieber

This might be your #1. Really any of the top 3 are interchangeable. Your cookgroup mod is returning 100 pairs right now I bet. pic.twitter.com/AOOJ5tSQlg

— sockjig (@sockjig) December 14, 2020

1. Nike Air Force 1 Music

Only dropping on Footsites, everyone copped hoping for another Day of the Dead type lowkey flip. Oh it was a horror movie alright. pic.twitter.com/6ago2AXk2V

— sockjig (@sockjig) December 14, 2020

Winner: Travis SB Dunk Low

The tournament took place on my @sockjig Twitter on Nov 24-25, 2020. Voting was by Twitter polls, each poll was open for 2 hours only. It was a lot of fun, a lot of people got mad at me for excluding their favourites, or when their fav lost. But that was the entire point, to get people to be arbitrarily mad.

Generate Your Own Bracket

You can generate your own bracket here!

Seeding

My personal Top 20 New Balance Sneakers of 2020. I discuss the list on Episode 6 of the Sockjig Sneaker Podcast as well.

20. Haven 990v5 Reflective Silver

19. RC_1300 Tokyo Design Marbled

18. No Vacancy Inn 650

17. Kith 998 Steel Blue

16. thisisneverthat 827 Tan

15. thisisneverthat 2002R white

14. ALD 827 White

13. Patta 920

12. Kith The Colorist Pink Toe 1700

11. Casablanca 327

10. Kithstrike Rose 990v2

9. 992 Grey

8. Dime 860 V2 Silver

7. ALD 550 Green

6. Packer 992

5. 1300JP

4. Salehe Bembury 2002R

3. JoeFreshGoods 992

2. JJJJound Grey / Green 992

1. WTAPS 992

The official sock of the sockjig.

Performance wear sock for chasing that bag and ski-daddling to the loop.

One pair
3/4 length crew sock in Washed Cream
One Size: M/L. Fits US mens shoe size 7-12, EU 39-46

Release: Online at shop.sockjig.com on Wednesday, June 24th at 2:00 PM EST / 11:00 AM PST
Price: $20 USD
Shipping to US: $5 USD
Shipping to Canada: $7.50 USD ($12 USD to Quebec)

Photography by Dean Hilario

My fictional friend Kenny Oldhead asked if he could make a guest post of his Top 10 Sneakers of 2020 So Far. He’s a typical older sneakerhead who doesn’t pay resell, complains about how the culture is shit now, and bullies people on social media who don’t wear their kicks. Take it away Kenny!

Hey nerds who only think a shoe is good if it resells, press pause on your Discord and eBay pool listings for a second cause here’s a list of the only good sneakers that released this year. Don’t expect any trash Yeezys or ice cream shoes for toddlers. Warning, you can’t wear any of these with your yoga pants.

10. Reebok Shaqnosis

I plan on pulling a quad muscle in these whenever drop-in basketball starts again.

9. Converse Pro Leather

An important shoe because Jordan wore these at UNC and even won the chip in them. Denim stains, here I come.

8. Air Ship

Nike finally retros the Air Ship and makes it impossible to buy for those of us that actually think it’s a nice shoe.

7. AM90 Volt

They finally un-bootified the AM90 AND included the arch supports again. Buy it on sale.

6. Air More Uptempo Olympic

I was wearing these when some kid at Costco said nice kicks to me. I talked about it all day until my wife told me to can it.

5. Lebron 7 Fairfax

An impossible to get PE, finally released as a GR, but no one cares cause it doesn’t resell. A perfect release IMO.

4. BlackCat 4

Thanks for letting it sit so me and my friends from the Y could cop to wear.

3. Kentucky Dunk

This one makes me angry cause it went to all you resellers instead of the people who truly deserve them: those of us who loudly complain about how Dunks and SBs sat and were on sale at one point and can’t believe how high prices are now. We are the true heroes.

2. AJ5 Fire Red

Who renamed this the Fire Red? It was always called the Silver Tongue. They finally got rid of the junk Jumpman and brought back the Nike Air.

1. Flint 13

Cowboys winning the Super Bowl this year.

Here’s some more questions to ask yourself if a sneaker will flip or not.

• There’s really no bids? I sleep.
• Is retail high? Do you want to spend $325 to maybe make $25, but really just sell for cost cause everyone else thought the same thing?
• Is bkantha offering free slots?
• City Blue AND Shiekh dropping? Tier 3 alert! Abort! Abort!
• Will wc_streetwear undercut you and list 82 asks at $91?
• Did DJ Khaled got seeded the sneakers in a bundle but only put them in the background?
• Did Qias make them look awful?

  Question: No show, mid, or high socks for these?
  
  How do you rock your jordan 4? pic.twitter.com/PL01DPJVJ4

  — Qias Omar (@QiasOmar) May 10, 2020

If yes, pass. Unless it’s retail, no tax, free ship and free returns. Then cop.

For a lot of sneakers, it’s pretty obvious whether they will flip or sit. It’s not a question if it’s a known shoe, or there’s a lot of early buzz about it. But for others, it’s not always clear. There’s a lot of sneakers that drop where the price on StockX/Goat before release seems reasonable, but quickly goes 📈 after the drop, in which case it’s already too late. A lot of times those early prices are often retailers, or people who have access to retailer pricing, selling early to make a quick buck since they would have paid a wholesale price. Early buyers often look at the low prices early and think its a sign a shoe will sit. This is often a mistake.

Here’s a checklist of some questions you can ask yourself if you’re on the fence. Obviously this is not definitive list by any means. Every sneaker has it’s own story and circumstances. Other factors like stimulus check season or even The Last Dance Jordan doc has affects that have to be considered. Other times a sneaker will come out of nowhere and pop too.

This may all sound obvious to some, especially if you’ve done this for a while. But really, it’s not always obvious for a lot of people. After a while, you develop a sneaker sense, this is just meant as practice for others.

Note: If you’re not reselling and just after a personal, you can still use the information here to determine if you should put more effort into copping on release, or if you can wait it out.

Checklist

• Is the model wearable?
• Is the colour wearable?
• Have only some stores announced a drop, or most stores?
• Will it be of special interest to any particular group?
• Does it come in mens sizes only? (Full-family sizing often a sign of a GR)

Plugs 🔌

If you know anyone that works at a store, they’re obviously going to be the best source of info for how much stock a store like that will get. However, something having low stock doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll flip. Adidas gives lots of stores a size run of Ozweegos no one gives a shit about. Use any early stock info to validate your own sneaker sense. That’s the point here.

Examples

Let’s take a look at a couple recent releases where it may not have been clear if it’ll flip or sit and apply the checklist.

Lebron 7 Lakers / Media Day

• ✅ Is the model wearable?
• ✅ Is the colour wearable?
• ✅ Have only some stores announced a drop, or most stores?
  • Only dropped at a few places: SNKRS, FL, Kith, Concepts, Nice Kicks, Jimmy Jazz, and a couple others.
• ✅ Will it be of special interest to any particular group?
  • Lebron fans, Lakers fans.
• ◻️ Does it come in mens sizes only?
  • Comes in GS and PS, but even those did not drop at all stores.

Really this shoe would appeal to a ton of Laker fans. Wouldn’t it be great right now seeing some dude wearing these who looks like The Perfect Pair outside Staples Center mugging at a cameraman before an important playoff game? Sigh.

The other important factor is if the NBA comes back this season and Lakers win the championship, these could 📈

Red Cement 3s

• ✅ Is the model wearable?
• ◻️ Is the colour wearable?
  • It’s wearable, but mostly red shoes definitely harder to pull off.
• ❌ Have only some stores announced a drop, or most stores?
  • Dropped everywhere
• ✅ Will it be of special interest to any particular group?
  • Not an OG, but could pass as one. Also has Nike Air on the back.
• ❌ Does it come in mens sizes only?
  • Full family sizing usually means GR.

The key here was that every store was getting this shoe, so you just had to pay attention to that part to know. Store plugs also said stock was huge, which was a good sign it would go on sale.

UNC 3s

• ✅ Is the model wearable?
• ✅ Is the colour wearable?
• ✅ Have only some stores announced a drop, or most stores?
  • This was the key for this drop, the usual places didn’t get this shoe.
• ✅ Will it be of special interest to any particular group?
  • UNC fans
• ✅ Does it come in mens sizes only?

Really the most important questions are the first few: is the model and colour NICE, and would people wear it. Then how available is the sneaker? You have to pay attention to which stores have posted on Instagram or on their mailing lists, and which have not. Another important thing is to ask around. Maybe don’t ask in your group’s general chat where you’ll get flamed, but ask your friends how are they preparing.

There’s also entire groups that focus on these types of calls. Here’s a very detailed evaluation by Buy.Sell.Hold Snipers on the Leborn 7 Lakers:

So this was our call, should we post a clip from the live stream? Or y’all not ready for that yet? 📈📈📈📈📈 pic.twitter.com/9fAwGOvw4P

— Buy.Sell.Hold. (@BSHSnipers) May 16, 2020

Practice

Try the checklist on Jordan 4 Metallic 4 Purple dropping tomorrow (May 20, 2020). Will it flip or sit?

Flint 13s shock dropped on Nike SNKRS today. Really the drop was kind of a disaster because it only went live on Nike desktop and not on SNKRS itself. But earlier in the day, I started hearing about a possible shock drop. This is a breakdown of what goes on the day, before and after a SNKRS shock drop.

Typical Shock Drop Timeline

• 11:30 AM: chatter begins about a possible SNKRS shock drop
• 12:00 PM: People try to quietly confirm with other reputable sources in other groups, or within the sneaker industry.
• 1:00 PM: Drop is confirmed, but not that well known yet. Some start taking bids. More on this below.
• 3:00 PM: More groups start announcing shock drop to their members. If a big group like AMNotify says it, it’ll eventually leak to all other groups. AMNotify is Wuhan in this case.
• 5:00 PM: People start getting comfortable tweeting about it
• 6:00 PM: Some start predicting either no shock drop, or a different shoe will drop
• 7:00 PM: You hear 4 different possible drop times: 8:30PM, 8:45PM, 8:50PM, or 9:00PM.
• 8:30 PM: Bigger link accounts may start to glom on and tweeting out their affiliate links
• 8:50 PM: Shock Drop
• 8:53 PM: Bid taking commences for everyone who hit
• 8:55 PM: People want credit for calling it.
• 8:59 PM: Nike live chat wait is 45mins long because everyone is trying to upgrade to 2-day shipping.
• 9:00 PM: Price drops on the apps drops by $20-30 to $275. Some consider cancelling their orders if it drops too much.
• 11:00 PM: Price recovers and goes back up to $320 or so.

Taking Bids Before The Shock Drop

Some resellers will gamble and start taking bids when they first hear about a possible shock drop, before there’s any widespread confirmation of one. Especially if they hear about it before other groups are talking about it. Then on the shock drop, they’ll just go for those sizes. In this StockX Sales History Chart for Flint 13, you’ll see 5 sales within 8 minutes between 12:44pm to 12:52pm:

This is most likely when word started spreading about the Flint 13 shock drop. As of Sunday night, as I write this, the average price of those sizes is $315usd. So by selling at $350 earlier in the day, they made a $35 premium on what they would have if they took a bid after the shock drop.

But really I don’t recommend anyone do this. Especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. This is a seasoned professional lane only. It’s especially hard to do because you have to hit that size on the drop and have in hand within a few days. Some who live relatively close to Nike’s Memphis warehouse routinely do this. But this is even harder to pull off with COVID-19 delaying shipments across the board. You also have to have a high Goat score, or a StockX account in good standing where it’s easy to cancel. Timing wise you have to have a lot of things go right. Stay in your own lane.

Starting a sneaker blog in 2020 doesn’t seem like a good idea. Everyone’s trying to be an Instagram influencer, starting podcasts, or wanting views on YouTube so they can get on that Under Armour seeded list. If everyone doing the same thing, fuck it, lets do something different.

This blog will be used for any longer form content than Twitter allows. It will mostly be short posts, lists, or analysis about buying and reselling sneakers online. This will not be a sneaker blog covering news or release information.

More about me here.