As one of the founding members of the FSF South Florida Street Team and the local coordinator of the Miami Dunkxchanges, Jen Jen is in the heart of the sneaker scene in Miami.  That doesn’t  limit the range of this global sneaker citizen, however, as she’s known to hit FSF parties in New York and hang with sneaker friends in Amsterdam!  I think it’s because she cares about her sneaker peeps as much as her (300 or so) sneakers…

It all started when…

I was real, real young, like twelve maybe. My brother was very into basketball, and he had all the cool sneakers at that time, and I wanted to be just like him. He had the Penny’s, the Barkleys, the Uptempos, all the cool sneakers. He had the silver uptempos, and I called them space shoes. And I wanted to have space shoes!  

Spanish dollar stores and sneaker schedules…

I started building my collection when I figured out the internet is a wonderful place! I was 14, 15, a freshman in high school. The first site I found was sole collector, and pickyourshoes, and it was nonstop. I started working at 14 in a Spanish dollar store and a Spanish pharmacy…being from Miami it’s only right! Every last check I made I spent it on shoes. For a very long time, all my money went straight to shoes! And I was like, “This check I’m going to buy this shoe, and this check I’m going to buy this shoe,” every week. And I remember I had a calendar, you know when I would get paid and which shoe I wanted to buy. It’s so silly thinking about it now. Scheduling what shoes I wanted to buy!

Mama knows best…

She supports [me being into sneakers] because she’s like, “Okay I’d rather you be into shoes than something that I don’t know what it is.” Cuz at the time when I first started high school that’s when punk music was kind of cool, and I wanted to be a rocker! And my mom was totally not with it. She was like ‘You’re not wearing all black!”   I wanted these little bracelets with spikes, and my mom was not having it! So when I got into sneakers she was like okay, I can deal with this.

I definitely remember telling my mom I wanted some Jordans, I think they were 14s, and they were coming out the next Saturday, and I wasn’t going to get my [check] until after.  I was begggging my mom to front me the money, and she was iffy about it! Like, “That’s your bad habit, you figure it out!”  And I was like, “Okay, I’ll be your slave and I’ll take out the garbage and clean the house and do everything, I’ll be Cinderella for the rest of the month!” And she did it.  Now when I buy sneakers I’ll be like, “Look what I got,” and she’ll say, “Wow those are nice, can I try them on?”

Jenjen at Dunkxchange Miami with close friends Relz and Chef from Randumbmiami

Strangers + Sneakers = Friends

I really found myself--who I am and who my friends have been--through sneakers. As corny as that may sound to someone else, that’s the truth of it. Most of the friends who I hang out with today have been through sneakers.  Some of them, I would never replace for the world! I met my very best friend Steph at the very first Dunkxchange here, and that was five yrs ago and we’re still really close friends.  I’ve met a lot of people through the internet, sneaker events, even in the mall! People will be like,  ‘Where’d you get those?’ And I’ll tell them ‘Check this site and that site, femalesneakerfiend, check out this site…’ It’s like this big opening conversation, and you instantly get along.

JenJen with FSF friends at Sneaker Pimps NYC

Like everybody who’s into sneakers has beasted for sneakers somewhere along the line. And you can’t just tell someone who isn’t into sneakers that “I’m dying for this shoe…I’ll pay X amount for this shoe.”  Or most people weren’t able to get shoes when they were younger, and you say that to somebody else [not a fiend], and they’re like, “Oh whatever, that’s wack.”  But you say it to someone else who likes sneakers and they totally get it! We share the same pain of not being able to have them, and searching for them.  I think I can honestly say I’ve made a lot of better friends through sneakers than any other way.  You find a lot of other things you have in common and it really, really comes together.

Downsides to the scene…

Like all the guys, even the ones who didn’t like me at first or gave me a really hard time, or told me off or something, definitely have all either tried to hit on me sometime after this or tried to ask me for a favor. I’m like “Yo, what happened to me being the one who didn’t know anything about anything, and now you’re coming to me for something?”

JenJen (infrareds, lower left) with the ladies at the FSF BBQ in NYC

Tips for steaming your vintage kicks…

I would say my favorite that I wear a lot would be my Charles Barkleys, the CB34s. I think those are 94s. They’re just so clean and they match with everything. I was trying to get them so many times, I could only find them on ebay, and I missed out on like eight pairs.  So I missed on them a bunch of times before I finally won a pair on ebay. By then I had enough female friends who were collectors also, and they told me, “All the small sizes break! Don’t wear them, they’re gonna crack.”  I wanted to wear them to a sneaker event, and when I met up with my friend Steph she already had hers on, but then they cracked!  Then I went online and did research about how to maintain vintage shoes. And I found out this interesting thing about steaming your shoes. You know when you take a hot shower, if a shoe is too hard you put it in the bathroom while you’re taking a hot shower, and it’ll get softer so you can wear it. So I steamed them a couple times, and I’ve been wearing them ever since! I did it a couple times just before wearing them, and then I’d wear them in my house just to make sure they didn’t feel funny and stuff, and they’ve been really, really good. I’ve been at dxcs, running around all day, and they’re fine.”

Upsides of the scene--meeting your sweetheart through a love of kicks...