BRENDAN DUNNE'S SOLE FOCUS

Kickstarting his interest in the world of sneakers from a young age, Dunne’s passion for footwear saw him channel his autodidactic obsession throughout his formative years, navigating the pre-social media landscape to scavenge clues and information from online forums and word of mouth. A far cry from the contemporary milieu of information overload, Dunne’s background as a sneaker fan, first and foremost, has propelled him into the spotlight as a spokesman for the culture. Working as a journalist within sneaker media throughout college and beyond, Dunne’s career led to him working for New York’s Complex – a behemoth of sneaker journalism. Serving as Sole Collector magazine’s editor-in-chief, Dunne’s passion and knowledge around sneakers is contagious, and his dedication to expanding what sneaker-centred entertainment can be is captivating.

Sitting down with Brendan Dunne ahead of the launch of the END. x adidas Torsion Super ‘Equals’, we discussed his passion for sneakers, his career so far and the changing landscape of sneaker culture.  

Sneakers are clearly a huge part of your life now; were you always into sneakers growing up?

I wouldn't say it was always part of my life, but something changed when I was in my teens and I realised that people were obsessing over footwear. That was around the time when I discovered that there were online communities, people trading information and trading shoes and just figuring out where to get these rare, mythical sneakers. My big introduction to it was being on the internet.

A lot of people have memories of watching Michael Jordan or watching certain sports superstars perform incredible feats and sneakers. That's not really my story. I'm also not the most athletic person, so it's not entirely relatable to me. I'm just a kid who was on the internet a lot, and that's how I grew to understand that it can be a cultural thing or an identity thing. Those forums are gone for the most part, but I do feel like there's so much information that was exchanged on there and so many little details and nuggets and stories that I hope that stuff can be preserved in some way. I do think we have those conversations on other platforms now. That's fine and appropriate, but that was the foundation for me, and I think it was for a lot of people. I hope that the game can be historically preserved in some way. It wasn't as easy to just Google a sneaker and understand it's story. You had to scroll through pages of information about it, or sheepishly ask someone to explain to people why this is an important shoe or why this is a good shoe or why this is a bad shoe.

How did you first get started in sneaker journalism? Did you always know that you wanted to get pursue?

I started working in the field in college and I just got lucky after submitting a job application to one of the sneaker blogs on a whim and feeling like I was okay at writing and I could put together sentences and paragraphs about sneakers and start out in a trial period. I dedicated myself to it throughout the last years of my college experience because I had less classes to take as I had satisfied a lot of my requirements, courses and things like that. I was able to spend a lot of time on it and just be really diligent and efficient about getting up as much possible sneaker news as I could on the internet with my byline on it. I did that for a period of time at the end of college as a freelance writer and then started doing it full time right out of college and been doing it since.

I don't think I ever aspired to it. And I think part of that is because it was such a smaller thing back then. It was certainly nothing that I thought about as a career goal growing up or anything like that. I didn't have a strong desire to write about sneakers at the time or to investigate them, and in a really deep way, it was just something I was obsessed with and something I was spending all my time on and something that I felt like I could do. But it was never something I thought about as an option really before then. Especially because, again, I felt so disconnected from all that because these things happen on the internet to an extent, but also in real life, places like New York or Los Angeles, places that I had never spent any time in. I was based in Eugene, Oregon, which despite being far from the cultural centres of sneakers, also has a special place in like a history of being where a lot of people got their start. So I did maybe have an advantage there, with this history being all all around me in a way.

How did Full Size Run come about as a concept initially?

Full Size Run came about mostly because the entire digital media industry was asking for more video content. The pivot to video thing is kind of a cliche now, and we were in the middle of that and we needed programming and we needed shows to fill up a slate and we came up with this general idea for a sneaker talk show, and it kind of evolved from there. It was funded early on because, again, platforms were looking for more video content and that kind of gave us a long runway to figure out what this thing was and tweak it. It existed at first as a live show, and then we figured out this funny thing we could do with the editing, which I think has become a signature of the show and allow it to be something more than just men talking, which a lot of it still is that. It was something foisted upon us in a way, but we felt like a lot of these conversations we were having naturally in the office anyway, and that was one of the most exciting parts of working in sneakers, you know, being able to just talk about them and be passionate about them, and this show allowed us to translate that to our regular programming.

Was the intention of the show when it started to translate that passion into something that would inform people on the topic and culture of sneakers?

I'd be lying if I said I recall too much of the intention around it when it began. But that is something that helped it feel more natural, is that we were used to doing this. We weren't used to being on camera or having our words broadcast like that, but we were used to sitting around in the office and arguing about sneakers and seeing a shred of news and wondering what was beyond it or beneath it and having those kind of talks on a regular basis. But it wasn't that planned out in terms of intention or where we wanted to take it. It happened to a lot of us, and this goes for other outlets besides Complex and Sole Collector, who weren't video people, they were people who were used to sitting behind a desk and writing about whatever their specialty was all day long, not necessarily hopping on a camera and talking about it. You look at the early stuff and you could tell it was very rough and we weren't that practiced or ready to ham it up on camera on a regular basis, but I think we've figured that out now!

It gives that necessary authenticity that wouldn't be there if these media companies hired presenters who weren't embedded within the culture.

We try and preserve that in terms of the authenticity. We have this very honest thing when we think about the show, like if we make mistakes, we keep the mistakes. It's kind of this inside joke about none of us being professionals or everything feeling kind of sloppy in a way that is funny to us. There was a recent episode where I was doing the intro for a guest, and I totally flubbed it. His hometown in Hawaii, this is UFC Fighter Max Holloway, and I just blew it. I knew how to say the name, which is Waianae, and I said it to myself 100 times in the 24 hours prior. It wasn't so much that I mispronounced the name of the place, I just kind of strung together a group of syllables that didn't make any sense, and in the moment he corrects me. Then Trinidad James, my co-host, says, "let's do it over. Let's let's take it again," and I said, "No, no, no, we're all good." There are a lot of moments like that where we could edit out something that went wrong, but it doesn't feel in the spirit of the show to do that. We feel like it will always be imperfect to an extent, so why not embrace it rather than try and hide it?

Who are some of your favourite guests that you've had on the show?

Action Bronson is always a fun one. We've had him on a couple of times. He's a great guy to speak to, but beyond those names, it's the people who I grew up listening to. You know, these guys are more recent, but people like Jadakiss, who I've been listening to for 20 years, or Lupe Fiasco, was a really big one. I think that might be my favourite episode, actually, just in terms of reflecting on my own performance on it, because I didn't have a lot of time to prepare. Sometimes we shoot stuff back to back or three in a week or something like that, and I remember for the Lupe Fiasco episode, I had to cram so much and take in so much of his work, discovering so many little references and working them into the jokes and bits and not sleep for very long beforehand. And I nailed it and I felt like I hit every note that I needed to and didn't walk away from it thinking, "oh, I wish I would have mentioned this or reference this". It just felt like one of those moments where we're really up there performing and trying to do certain things rather than just chatting, and that's a tough balance to strike, but I feel like we really got it on that episode.

Why do you think sneakers have become such an important part of modern culture?

It's tough to say exactly why they've become important, but I think we have benefited greatly from them becoming important and it's kind of, yeah, I don't know what the right phrase is, like the self-fulfilling prophecy is not quite it, but we've spent so much energy over the past decade plus, and when I say we I mean sneaker media as a whole, explaining why these things are important and trying to give them a sense of weight or value. I think that has allowed programs like ours to exist because had we not been doing that, they're going to come out and kind of prop that up anyway. You know, I'm not totally answering your question. But that's something I think about is the trajectory.

We've had this era within sneaker culture where collaboration has been so important, but it seems to be shifting a little now. How do you see see the culture changing as we move further into the '20s?

I do agree with you in terms of the shift and there being a whole wave of anti-hype and there being a group of people who are very into sneakers and have spent a lot of time and money on the cool limited editions, the things that barely exist, the things that resell for a lot of money. But I think there exists another wave of beyond that where you're aware of all that stuff and you understand it, but you want to wear something that's a little calmer and something that is still niche, but not about all that. That feels like the latest wave to arrive. In terms of what's coming next, I try to never make predictions because it allows me to be wrong and I just don't think I'm that good at it. I don't know what's next, but whatever it is, I'll be here.

What is your favourite adidas silhouette?

I think it's the ZX8000. It's right in that zone of just classic suede and mesh runner, with the aqua colorway that's so beautiful. It's a shoe that has echoed through a lot of different generations in a lot of ways. Again, thinking about the 2010's, the ZX flux was such a huge moment. You know, growing up in the U.S., the ZX series wasn't a huge deal for us, but things like that introduced us and helped us realise Torsion Bar and what that was supposed to look like and what those shapes really look like and why those were a big deal. That helped usher me towards stuff like ZX8000 - that's a big one. I've done a lot of gazelles over the years for sure. Just nice suede Gazelles. Stan Smith is a big one. I know these are obvious answers, but I met Stan Smith recently and got a chance to interview him and I remember so fondly the reintroduction of to Stan Smith in 2010s and how well timed that was. Before the general release, they did 100 pairs in a real nice eggshell leather that was a cut above what was available on the pairs to come, and I remember going to Barney's and buying a pair of those and being so hyped about that - now I have them with Stan Smith's signature on the side. Very, very special shoe to me.