I respect you wanting to support skateboarding . SB’s were made for skaters but inadvertently sparked a new wave/generation of sneakerheads .
The first time Nike tried to infiltrate the skate scene (~mid 90s) they got slapped in the mouth and bullied out . Fast forward two decades and skateboarding is lined up to make it’s highly anticipated/dreaded (depending on who you ask) Olympic debut in Tokyo 2020 . Nike has been able to slowly crawl their way into a position of power within our subculture .
Lots of skate shops have had beef with Nike due to their account policies , like forcing shops into ordering a wall full of bricks for a chance to sell the one or two hyped silhouettes/colorways that people actually buy . More recently , Nike has forced many core shops to take SB product off of their online webshops & relegate SB (shoe*) sales to strictly in-store transactions while threatening to cancel accounts if they do not comply (only a handful of shops are still allowed to sell online - a number that will continue to decrease) .
The future of core skate shops is looking pretty grim since they can’t compete with modern day e-commerce . I go into my local shop to pick something up as often as possible (usually a shop tee/fresh deck) . Mom and pop shops in general are dying/being pushed out of business , which is a shame for American culture .
All that being said , it’s not 100% Nike’s fault by any means . I don’t blame them even though most of my peers do . At the end of the day , it’s the skaters’ choice to support certain companies and keep them afloat/relevant in skateboarding . That early 00’s run of Nike SB (shimizu / supa / gino / forbes etc) had a team that was creative , super stylish and tough as nails which made me an instant fan .
CCS/Tactics/Skate Warehouse/Active are not considered core shops . A core shop owned & operated by skateboarders in NYC is Labor . I would highly recommend dropping by and saying what’s up for the experience . Most people sleep on buying SB’s from brick and mortar skate shops (usually due to convenience/location) - but if you get cool with the employees/owner (actually skating helps) & they have a Nike SB account , you can get your hands on pretty much anything you want since most skaters aren’t down to pay $100+ on skate shoes meant to be thrashed .
As stated in the post above , here’s the SB Dunk thread - lots of information and cool folk in it :
https://niketalk.com/threads/2018-nike-sb-dunk-thread_____grs-and-qss-added.303260/page-7858
