Thinking of ways to be more sustainable and kind to this planet? Start with reducing fast fashion purchases (or even fully ditching them) and switch to the exciting world of thrifting! Below you’ll see second hand expert Joanna Taurinen doing her usual trip to the thrift shop, along with presenting good reasons why you should start thrifting too.
It seems to be that Glasgow doesn’t really have any small sneaker-specialized stores, however I’ve come across this one hidden gem in the city centre of Glasgow. It’s a sneaker café/laundry/store called Sneaker Laundry, situated at 73-77 Trongate, Glasgow. The store was established in 2015 by two buddies, Rob and Al.
This is the sneaker cleaning -station. A deep cleaning on your trainers would range around 18 to 35 pounds depending on the brand (luxury brands require more careful handling and are therefore more expensive to have cleaned). Definitely the place to come to if the Scottish weather has ruined your sneakers! I also love the aesthetics of this cleaning-corner a lot!
They don’t really have a huge selection of sneakers, however they do have some accessories and sneaker-related books. They sell mostly a t-shirts and sweaters, but they had cool smaller brands which is always nice to notice.
The cute little café with lovely staff.
If you are visiting Glasgow, or happen to live here like me, do pay a visit to this place!
-Siri
When it comes to having cool sneakers, you need to make the entire outfit go with them. Styling and color-coordinating my outfits with sneakers is a passion of mine. Before purchasing a new pair of sneakers I always think what I could wear with them, and so to say measure if I have enough of that same colour in my closet for the purchase to be worth it. I now want to show you some styling examples wearing the nicest shoes from my collection:
This is how I’d style my most recent pair of sneakers, the Nike Air Uptempo 96 Light Aqua‘s. I’m wearing a thrifted navy blue Champion sweater and baggy jeans by Pretty Little Thing.
A very winter-friendly styling with Air Jordan Retro Low OG “Bred” Red‘s. Styled with black cargo trousers from H&M, a red North Face Nuptse jacket, and Marimekko bag.
Details: black polo shirt from Monki, Nike necklace from Etsy and buckle belt made by me.
Same shoes, but with a simple summer styling. Wearing blue jeans by Vero Moda, t-shirt from Monki and red backpack from Primark.
As you can barely see (sorry) I’m wearing Air Jordan 1 Mid Black Yellow‘s on my feet. Styled with a thrifted yellow t-shirt, baggy jeans by Pretty Little Thing and bag from Marimekko.
Wearing Nike Air Max 95 Rose Pink on my feet which I paired with an Adidas skirt, Stormzy t-shirt, Marimekko bag and pink jacket that I borrowed from my friend (sorry don’t know the brand).
One of my favorite “comfy but stylish” looks! I paired my Buffalo Classic Low Nubuck Leather Cream’s with beige pants by H&M, beige trench coat from H&M as well and a black scarf from Monki.
Do you also like to color-coordinate your outfits with your sneakers? Let me know in the comments below what criteria’s you have when buying new sneakers!
-Siri
I went to London some time ago and visited some hyped sneaker shops there. There are so many sneaker shops in London that I didn’t even get the chance to visit all of them, but at least I got a glance of a few of them.
Let’s start off with Footpatrol, which is located at 80 Berwick Street, London.
The shop was very aesthetically pleasing! I wish I had a sneaker closet at home that looked like this. The selection wasn’t very big, but they definitely had some cool sneakers that you don’t find at every shop. Here are some of my faves that I found there:
Adidas x Reebok InstaPump Fury Boost
Li Ning Furious Rider Ace 1.5
Nike Air Jordan 1 High OG ‘Fearless’
Look what I found! Karhu in London! It made me very happy to see that you could find the Finnish pride in a fashion capital like London. They were even discounted to £45, which is not much for Karhu, I hope the shoes have found a lucky owner.
Next I went to Presented By, which turned out to be heaven. The store is located at 15 Percy Street, London.
Looks pretty fancy already outside of the store, right? Once you walk in and the door is opened by a security guard, that’s when you can tell that you’ve just stepped into a slightly more expensive and exclusive store.
This is how it looks like once you walk in. The board at the top is displaying the current selling rates of the most exclusive and wanted sneakers. All of the prices had at least four digits…
These were very interesting to me. I was wondering if “Flea” is a reference to Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers? After I did some research I found out it wasn’t, but this is anyway such a cool design.
Playstation x Nike Air Force 1, how cool are these?!
They even have a claw machine where you could win a pair of sneakers.
I found a few of my dream sneakers that have been on my ‘to buy’ list for a while, but when I asked for their price and the shop assistant said that they were around £800-£500 my jaw dropped. Both of them have been around £200 when they first were released, but now they’ve gone significantly up in their retail price as they’re very wanted and quite rare to find. So I left the shop empty handed as the poor student that I am, but I will definitely be back some day when I have some more money.
I hope you enjoyed today’s post, until next time!
-Siri
Today’s topic is an exciting one for me. I’m going to introduce you to the Finnish sneaker & street wear brand Karhu. Karhu meaning bear in Finnish, was established in 1916 as a sports goods company. The brand has already in its early days been seen on Finnish athletes at the 1920 Olympics (they won five gold metals) and at the 1924 Olympics, when runner Paavo Nurmi won five gold metals wearing Karhu running spikes. Another fun fact; Karhu sold their trademark at the time, which was “three stripes” to Adidas in 1952 for 1600 euros and two bottles of whiskey. I wonder if they regret that decision…
I visited Karhu’s flagship store in Helsinki which is located at Lasipalatsi, Mannerheimintie 22-24.
This is the place where you can find the best selection of Karhu sneakers for sure.
The famous three stripes they sold…
A variety of the sneaker model known as Karhu Originals.
Two of my favorite pairs at the store:
The shop has a cool display of Karhu’s history with various other products than just sneakers, such as t-shirts, hoodies, jackets, socks and mugs.
Karhu is a pride for me and many other Finns, as I personally like to support Finnish businesses. It’s great to see a brand that’s important to Finland’s sport history do well, even globally. I hope I got at least one more person interested in this quality brand.
-Siri
I thought I want to show you and compare a few different stores specialized in sneakers. I’m going to start this mini-series with a post about my favorite sneaker store in my home country. So as you may or may not know by now, I come from Finland, a cold country located in Northern Europe. Streetwear and sneaker culture has been gaining a lot of popularity and recognition in Finland during the past few years. There are several stores specialized in sneakers in the capital of Finland, and there has even been a sneaker convention organized in Helsinki every year since 2017.
In today’s post I’m going to present Beamhill to you, a sneaker store located in the centre of Helsinki, at Yliopistonkatu 5.
Beamhill was established in 1986 as a store specialized in denim, and grew bigger in the 90’s with a greater selection
I believe that Beamhill is the only store in Finland that has sneaker raffles, which means that you participate in a raffle to have the chance to purchase sneakers that are being released limited edition, e.g. special Air Jordan 1’s or Yeezy’s.
Beamhill provides a variety of different very known brands such as Adidas, Nike, Puma, Acne Studios, but also less known brands such as Aimé Leon Dore, Nomen Nescio and Carne Bollente.
There’s a great selection of shoes that can’t be found in the big streetwear chains such as JD Sports, which makes these kind of small stores special with their unique products.
Beamhill also has a great selection of shoes by the Finnish established brand Karhu (translates to bear). I have been dreaming about a pair of Karhu sneakers for years, as I want to support Finnish products as much as possible, but I’ve yet to find the perfect pair for me. By the way, in the next post I’m going to introduce you more to Karhu as I visit their flagship store in Helsinki.
This Nike shoe was a special find in the store that really caught my eye.
I hope you enjoyed this introduction to the famous Finnish sneaker store. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comment section below.
-Siri
When getting into the world of sneakers, you’re gonna come across a lot of new words for sure and you might be wondering what they mean. That’s why I’m here to help you with the basic sneaker vocabulary! Let’s get started:
Hypebeast: A person who likes to stay up to date with every trend and impress others with their outfits and sneaker collection.
Raffle: You participate in a raffle in order to get a chance to buy a pair of limited sneakers.
Colourways: Basically the color-scheme of the product.
Retro: This is especially among Air Jordans, a re-released sneaker will be called a “retro” when it’s being released again.
Grails: It could be a very limited pair of sneakers, but it could really be any pair that is someones favorite. People are sometimes ready to pay way over retail price and even current market price, for their personal “holy grail” pair.
Bred: It’s the OG colourway of Air Jordan’s, black and red (=bred), this colourway is always going to sell out quickly.
DS: Shortened from Deadstock, aka brand new, never worn.
High Tops: Sneakers that come above your ankle.
Lows: The opposite to high tops, so they are supposed to rest below your ankles.
Js: Jordans, you might’ve heard Mike WiLL Made-It sing “J’s on my feet”.
You should get started quite well with these few definitions, there really are loads of words in the world of sneakers that you still have to discover. I hope you learned something new from this.
-Siri
Hi there!
Are you scared of wearing your brand new sneakers because you think you’ll ruin them? I’m sure all of us sneaker enthusiasts have had this problem. But don’t be afraid to wear them, I have the perfect routine to get them clean!
So in today’s post I’m going to show you how I get even my dirtiest shoes looking brand new.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, if you have any questions please ask me down below in the comment section.
-Siri
Hi there and a very warm welcome to my new blog!
I’m Siri, a 20-year old student at Glasgow Caledonian University and I’m going to be writing about my passion for sneakers. In this first post you’ll get a glance at my sneaker collection, which I’ve been collecting for a few years.
Let’s have a look at my sneaker collection!
These are a special pair that I bought in London over five years ago. Nike Air Max 90’s were really in at the time and as you can see they’re pretty worn, especially at the tip because I used to dance in these.
These were a must for my collection, as I’m a huge Hello Kitty enthusiast.
What can I say? These are simply a classic and easy to pair with any outfit.
These are my favorites! They’re a staple piece that make a statement with a more simple outfit.
Once you get your first pair of Jordan’s, you’re going to want more. I was looking for these on the internet for about a year, but their retail price was around 200 dollars so I just kept looking. I was delighted when these classics were re-released in the spring of 2018 for a more affordable price than what I could find on the web.
I needed a pink pair of sneakers to my collection, and these felt like the perfect choice. Also very comfortable to wear all day!
The most recent addition to my collection. A very refreshing color that’s a guaranteed attention getter.
These are pretty heavy on the feet, but so cool! As a short person, I love wearing these to concerts to see better. They look gorgeous paired with some flared trousers to give you that Bratz-doll look.
These are my everyday shoes, so comfortable and easy to slide on your feet. But can you see how dirty they are? That being said, in my next blog post I’m going to show you how I clean my shoes, so stay tuned!
Thank you for reading my first blog post, until next time!
-Siri
Site Title 