Ripoff Or Rival? Here’s How The Sneaker World Is Split By Copying

For decades, Dutch photographer Hans Eijkelboom watched the world go by. Hidden in plain sight, Eijkelboom photographed public squares all around the globe. Working in hours-long bursts, he captured the people flowing through places at a specific moment in time – thousands of unique individuals, each as distinct as the last, their differences captured with only a datestamp in common. Or so one would believe. In reality, Eijkelboom’s work – published as the evocatively-monotonous “People of the Twenty-First Century” – revealed a world full of patterns. Whether intentionally or not, the unique individuals he saw congealed around specific macrotrends. Laid out in time-stamped photo grids, Eijkelboom’s work suggests a clear if uncomfortable message: the people of the twenty-first century were born to copy. In a sneaker market rife with recycled material (adidas x Parley excluded, of course), it’s not hard to see his point. As sneakerheads of the twenty-first century, we must approach an industry defined by duplication with clear eyes. Where is the line between “knock-off” and “homage”? Between “copy” and “contemporary”? And most importantly of all: what does the current state of sneaker copying mean for the future of the industry? Read more at Highsnobiety.