You’ve obviously got a decent collection of sneakers. When did you first regard yourself as a sneaker collector?

I’m a pretty amateur sneaker collector! It’s a weird one. On a day-to-day normal person level, yeah, I consider myself a sneaker collector, but on a level of sneaker collectors, I don’t consider myself a sneaker collector. I had maybe 120, 130 [pairs] but I’ve kinda calmed down a bit. I don’t buy sneakers that much anymore. I bought the ‘Skippy’ New Balance, the Sneaker Freaker ones. I really love them! Just to be supportive of them, and the fact that I love the colour-way, I love everything about it! Sneaker Freaker have always supported my work and I just wanna show the same love back, but that’s not the main reason I got them – it’s just a good excuse to buy a pair of shoes!

I don’t consider myself a sneaker collector – I’ve got a lot of shoes… about 80 pairs. When you’re with something all the time, it’s just like “I have to have those!”. When you’re working in a sneaker store you’re like “I have to have them! I have to have them! I have to have them!” and every week you’re buying a pair of trainers. Then when you leave, you stop doing it, and you’re like “Do you know what? You can’t have every sneaker you want”.

So how does an avid sneaker fan pass his passion onto his children?

Uhh he doesn’t! It’s really bad. When my daughter was at nursery, her mum would drop her off at Size?, where I was working, and she’d hang out. She’d come at the last hour of my shift and she’d hang out at the store, and all the staff would play with her and she had the freedom of running around the store. At the age of 3 she knew what an Adidas trefoil was, she knew what a Nike swoosh was, she knew what a Dunk was or a Jordan.

I was taking her to nursery and some kid ran up to her and he was like “Look! I’ve got a dinosaur on my shoes!” and she was like “And what?! I’ve got a Nike swoosh on my shoes”. All the mothers turned and looked at me in disgust, and it is. I don’t want my daughter to be a ‘consumer’ person. At the point when that happened I was like “You know what? I gotta calm down on the sneaker thing and not emphasise it”. Obviously, before then she had more than enough sneakers, but now I’m just like “She only needs sneakers when she needs sneakers. She doesn’t need more than one pair at any time”. She still likes her sneakers – I think it’s good for her as well, that she can go to the playground and her mates will be like “I like your sneakers”, but at the same time I don’t push it too hard.

A lot of the time I’m working and sometimes when I’m with her and I’ve got a project on it’s really difficult to keep her entertained and also spend time with her. So I try and get her involved with some of my shoes … with the ‘Bel-Air Max’ she helped speckle the sole. I want her to feel a part of it and I want her to learn from it as well.