Netflix’s Sneakerheads is spot on about US$6 billion sneaker resale market – but don’t use it as a guide to Hong Kong

Sneakerheads follows a man’s quest for a pair of mythical Jordan ‘Zeroes’ in a lucrative market in which shoe brands restrict releases to drive resale demand

Hong Kong’s love for sneakers is widespread, but even more popular is streetwear from brands like Supreme

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A scene from Netflix comedy Sneakerheads, which gets the global sneaker resale market 100 per cent right, but literally gets lost in Hong Kong. Photo: Netflix

Published: 7:15am, 30 Oct 2020Updated: 7:32am, 30 Oct 2020

Sneakerheads is equal parts heartwarming, hilarious – and the worst ever guide to Hong Kong.

Based on the sneaker resale subculture – a multibillion-dollar industry where people sell sneakers for more than their original retail price – the six-part Netflix comedy series follows an American man’s quest for a pair of mythical Jordan “Zeroes”, a prototype Air Jordan shoe from Nike.

Part way through the series, the adventure moves from Los Angeles to Hong Kong – a city which Sneakerheads could not get any more wrong. Our heroes – family man Devin and his former partner in flipping shoes, Bobby – turn up in the city’s affluent Mid-Levels area on Hong Kong Island after hopping in a taxi at the airport, despite wanting to go to Mong Kok’s Sneaker Street, a tourist mecca which is across Victoria Harbour in Kowloon district.

Despite the ready availability of taxis, the duo take the long way down to the harbour via the Central–Mid-Levels escalator, before taking an inexplicably postcard-perfect ferry across to Kowloon.

A scene from Sneakerheads. Photo: Netflix

As wrong as Sneakerheads is about Hong Kong’s navigability – the city is such a well-trodden spot for shoe collectors that Sneaker Street is actually signposted – it is 100 per cent right about the sneaker resale market.