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RED SHOES: THE ESHAY EPIDEMIC

From 2018 to 2021, almost any red shoe sitting on the walls of Foot Locker and JD Sports was guaranteed to find its way onto the feet of an eshay or adlay. 


If there was ever a peak for it, it was 2020. That year, I was working at Mount Druitt Foot Locker and there was one statement my colleagues and I heard on repeat: “Bro, they gotta bring back the TN Lavas. Hottest shoe ever.”



The fascination that was almost obsession-like with red shoes ran so deep that it spilled far beyond the Nike Air Max Plus. All red colourways across multiple brands and silhouettes, such as the Nike Air Max 270, ASICS GEL‑QUANTUM 360 Knit 1 and Under Armour HOVR Phantom 2, moved in a constant cycle of selling out and being restocked every fortnight. 


It was a constant rotation that back in Mount Druitt Foot Locker, we had to create a book to take down names and numbers of anyone who came asking for one, so we could notify them of their size when they restocked.


Even artists felt the pull. OneFour (the rappers and the ‘crew’) were regulars in store and they practically leave the store without at least one of them picking up a pair of red shoes. 

JD Sports experienced this too and took advantage of it by utilising Hooligan Hefs as the promotion for the ASICS GEL-QUANTUM 360 VI all red release. 

Online, the demand was just as loud. In Nike Air Max Plus (TN) Facebook groups, the ‘Lavas’, which is the all red TN, were permanently attached to “WTB” (wanting to buy) posts. Ironically, the TN ‘Peppers’, a shoe that was almost entirely red except for a white Swoosh, never reached Lava status but still stayed firmly in high demand. 

When the TN ‘Lavas’ were finally retroed in 2021, it felt unavoidable. You couldn’t walk through a suburb without spotting an eshay or adlay rocking a pair. But included in that saturation was the beginning of the end. Almost paradoxically, the retro coincided with the decline of the red shoe fixation amongst eshays and adlays. What had once been a niche trend slowly became oversaturated and the culture moved on.

At its peak, the association with red shoes was so strong it crossed into real world consequences. A nightclub in Perth, Western Australia reportedly banned patrons wearing red shoes altogether, citing the colour as a common denominator in disturbances and trouble. Whether myth or fact, it perfectly captured the moment: red shoes were not only loud on feet but it was a siren for mischief and trouble.


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