Chris Chase lives and breathes sneakers — both personally and professionally. Better known as Nightwing2303, he’s a co-founder of the well-known footwear review platform WearTesters and has reviewed hundreds of sneakers since WearTesters first burst on the scene in 2011. His love for sneakers sprung from a childhood love of basketball, and where most Sole Mates guests look at their footwear primarily from a lifestyle perspective, it’s almost always performance first for Chase. It is both his job and his passion, after all.

What’s the guy who’s hooped in pretty much every shoe known to humankind’s personal favorite sneaker? The Air Jordan 11 “Bred.” To Chase, Michael Jordan’s 11th signature sneaker was pivotal for the Air Jordan line, but, more importantly, it was pivotal to him personally. His half-brother gifted him a pair after a basketball camp, and that moment still sticks with him today. In a nearly hour-long conversation, Chase told Hypebeast about why he thinks brands should still lead with performance and innovation, how casting too wide of a net can hurt the prestige of a product, and why he thinks the Air Jordan 11 has been able to stand the test of time.

What got you into sneakers?

Basketball. Without basketball, I wouldn’t have ever thought about sneakers, but when I was playing basketball in sixth grade, I got made fun of for wearing shoes from Payless. The other kids on my team and the teams we played were like, “Your shoes are from Payless! They’re garbage!” I was like “What does that even mean?” Then, I noticed for the first time that everyone else at my school had a Swoosh on their sneakers. Funnily enough, most of the other kids on my team were wearing the Nike Air Barrage, which isn’t even a basketball shoe.

You wound up getting your first pair of Nikes shortly thereafter, right? What was that feeling like?

I had to beg my mom for a whole year to get a pair, and I can’t imagine how annoying I must have been. I was a one-shoe-a-year kid and most Nikes were just too expensive, but finally in the summer leading up to seventh grade, she gave in and was like “Look Chris, if you can find a pair for $40 or less I got you.” That became my new goal. I didn’t want to work on my game, I wanted to find that deal [laughs]. Eventually, I found this random model, the Air Sonic Flight, at Oshman’s [a department store]. Once I stuck my foot in them and laced them up for the first time, there was no going back. Obviously I didn’t know it at the time, but I think that process may have been the spark that led to my current hustle.

So when did you get your first pair of Jordans? Was it the “Bred” 11?

Yes, it was. It was actually a really random thing. Getting a pair of Jordans didn’t seem like it would ever be in the cards for me. My parents definitely weren’t having it because they flat-out couldn’t afford it, and that was something that I just accepted. As long as I got a pair of Nikes — which I always would, because we were able to get the previous year’s models on sale — I was perfectly happy.

The summer after eighth grade, I spent a few weeks out at overnight basketball camps. The last camp was close to where my half brother lived, and my mom was like “let’s bring you over to his house and you guys can spend the weekend together.” I had brought my newest pair of shoes for the camp, and I looked at them as indoor-only hooping shoes because I didn’t want to tear them up on an outdoor court. My half brother and I were going to go hoop outside, and I was like “I really don’t want to ruin my shoes. Do you have a pair I can borrow?” He dug underneath his bed and came out with the “Bred” 11.

I remember thinking “What the f*ck?” He didn’t really know what they were because he’s always been a flip-flop guy, and was like “You can wear these, they’re just some sh*tty basketball shoes.” I was like “No, these are the basketball shoes.” He wound up giving them to me to keep, and that was another “I’m never going back” moment. The Nikes I had were cool, but those 11s were f*cking comfortable, bro. The original 11s are like clouds on your feet.

“I like to think of footwear as pictures on the wall of someone’s house, or even tattoos: there’s a story behind each one.”

Is that personal experience why the “Bred” 11 still sticks with you to this day?

Mostly, yeah. What Michael Jordan did in them is more on the backburner for me. I like to think of footwear as pictures on the wall of someone’s house, or even tattoos: there’s a story behind each one. Of course, Michael Jordan’s accomplishments in them are undeniable. That great Chicago Bulls team, 72 wins, a legendary championship run. But what I did in them and how I got them was what made them really special for me. My childhood wasn’t always the best, so I really held tightly to those little happy moments.

Why do you think the Air Jordan 11 is one of the most seminal models in the Air Jordan lineage?

I think that a lot of people from my generation have a personal experience or a story with the Air Jordan 11 that’s similar to the one I do. When so many people have that shared bond, even if they don’t talk about it directly, it builds connective tissue. Besides that connection, the mythical power that Michael Jordan had was at its peak then. Not only was it his shoe during a game-changing season, it was a game-changing shoe itself. Who else was putting patent leather on basketball shoes before that? What other signature shoe had an upper built of ballistic mesh? That shoe has so many “oh, sh*t” moments for so many people, and when you compile that with what Michael Jordan did, it’s just a snowball effect that even draws in a new generation who didn’t see MJ play. Honestly, I think that’s why this upcoming Air Jordan 11 “Gratitude” release is missing the mark — it’s not exploring the entirety of that legacy, those personal stories. It has zero to do with performance, and it doesn’t even talk about MJ. How weird is that?

That “crowd” you speak of — the modern-day segment of it, at least — doesn’t seem to be drawn to new performance footwear from a lifestyle standpoint in the same way that audiences were in the ’90s. Why do you think that is?

There are a lot of reasons. First, the connection to athletes is a lot different now. You can get to know them, to an extent, by simply following them on social media. You don’t need their products anymore. Back in the ’90s, if you didn’t hear about these athletes on the news it was either via a paper or a magazine, and that was close as you would get. If you wanted to really feel connected to Charles Barkley, Shawn Kemp or Patrick Ewing, you had to buy their product. The second part is that a lot of the people from my generation got into sneakers through sports, and that’s not so much the case today. Not to mention that a lot of kids these days have multiple pairs of shoes. You don’t see too many “one pair a year” kids like I was, which I think, for better or worse, dulls that deep personal connection to a specific model. In fairness, that can be attributed to my generation: we want our kids to have a couple pairs of shoes instead of just one.

It seems as if you’re saying a wearer’s connection with shoes would have happened very organically in the ’90s — they had more of an opportunity to write their own story through their footwear, be it a casual shoe like the Air Force 1 or a basketball shoe like the Air Jordan 11. Those stories were fully organic because there wasn’t a level of hyper exposure like there is today. Do you think that the authenticity of those connections has been diluted in any way now that brands are controlling each and every inch of a shoe’s rollout, reception and the like instead of letting the audience write their own narrative about it?

I think so. How many times has the Air Jordan 11 released since ‘96? Dozens. There is no more first time. Footwear brands are trying to hit every audience out of the gate instead of letting a shoe build cachet organically. Back in the day, the focus really was performance. Brands would try to make the best performance shoe they could with the budget they had. Today, brands are still doing performance product, but they’re diluting it because the market is so oversaturated with drops. There’s a retro a week, it seems — sometimes even multiple retros a week. It seems good from a company perspective, because you’re firing on all cylinders, hitting the new kid, the hooper, the nostalgia guy and the collector, but that’s where the organic side starts to dwindle. When you have a department that’s operating soley on Air Jordan 1s, you know that sh*t has gotten really corporate.

“There’s a tricky balance between making products for early adopters and products for the masses, and ensuring that one pays for the other.”

Most of today’s iconic lifestyle shoes, from the Chuck Taylor to the Air Jordan 1, were performance models first. How do you think a brand can continue to put performance first when the lifestyle market is so different than it’s ever been?

There’s a tricky balance between making products for early adopters and products for the masses, and ensuring that one pays for the other. There’s a certain audience that you need to satiate that only wants Travis Scott, Union and A Ma Maniére collaborations, and simply doesn’t care about what else is going on. Meanwhile, there are the innovators and early adopters who are much smaller in number but want to have that real bond and those real discussions with the brand about their latest and greatest. Those are the people that drive that conversation, and it doesn’t seem like the brands pay enough attention to them. It’s kind of like how big blockbuster films pay for the indie movies that are critically acclaimed and actually “good,” if you will.

There are also just a lot of different products. Even if you just look at the Air Jordan 1, there are five different versions of that. No matter what your budget is, they’ve got you — that’s what I meant when I said that everything’s been so corporatized earlier. Big footwear brands aren’t trying to catch specific customers like fish anymore, they’re just throwing out the biggest net they have and reeling in everything. As long as brands understand they’re doing that and don’t let a wide window of interest affect a budget too much to the point that they’re making a subpar shoe, they can still put performance first. You don’t want to dilute your brand to the point where, say, Skechers puts out a basketball shoe and a customer is like “Wait a minute, I can get down in Skechers? I don’t need Jordans?” That’s where things get dicy. Jordans in the ’90s were just a pinnacle product through and through, and that’s what seems to be missing today.

What do you think Jordan Brand can do to get back to that pinnacle they were at when the Air Jordan 11 was out? Is that feasible without Michael Jordan actually on the court?

That’s hard to pinpoint, because modern performance materials don’t translate as well to lifestyle wear as they used to. When the Air Jordan 11 came out, it was loaded with the best tech available, but it also had that patent leather and ballistic mesh, which, for whatever reasons, translated perfectly to lifestyle wear and still does today. It’s really hard to find something so timeless. When your sole focus is performance in today’s market, your shoe has to be light, thin and see-through. Most modern performance shoes use a lot of synthetics and plastics, and the end result is different. The performance is great, but it may not work as well off the court. Old-school heads might still be like “This is the new Air Jordan, and I’m gonna pick it up and rock it off the court.” That’s the most loyal Jordan Brand customer, and I think that’s where Jordan needs to be careful, because it sometimes feels like those heads are being ignored in favor of the new generation. I think Jordan Brand need to do a little better job of balancing those groups and speaking to them simultaneously.

Is the process of finding enjoyment in shoes still the same as it was for you as a kid? If it’s different, how so?

It really depends on the shoe. I’ll still get those same butterflies I had when I was a kid as I open the box of a pair I always wanted. I just mentioned Jordan Brand balancing those two groups of customers, and I think the unboxing experience is a great way to do that. The original packaging gives us ’80s and ’90s babies a chance to relive that experience, but it also gives the new kids that experience for the first time and brings the audiences together. Those are the kind of sneaker memories that stick with you and forge bonds. I still remember kids from my high school who had certain shoes — not their names, but the shoes they had. I never forgot the rich kid with the Foampsites [laughs].

Why are sneakers important to you?

I almost feel like I’m stuck in the corporate world answering that, because the first thing that comes to mind is “they’re my job.” That’s a lame-ass answer though [laughs]. Honestly, I’d say it’s because they keep me connected to basketball, which was my first love. Basketball taught me a lot of life lessons, and it’s so important to sneaker culture. That’s why when I see modern marketing campaigns and it’s all about the “streets,” I’m like “hey, let’s not erase the performance part of this shoe’s history.” Like I’d mentioned earlier, it was important to have the proper equipment to get the job done on the court, and millions of kids — like me — were like “I need some f*cking Jordans.”