We are super excited to premiere our new original series ‘YMZ CLOSETS‘.
YMZ CLOSETS is a new series by YoMzansi, exploring the coolest closets, anything from Sneakers, Clothes, Accessories, and other Collectables.
For the first episode, we turned to Cape Town-based Chris Jack, to check out his epic clean sneaker closet and to talk about his sneaker show, working with different brands as well as the local sneaker culture.
His DJ’ing career dates back to the early 2000s and it was through music that he first got into sneakers. He forms part of the Electro Candi 4 project by Soul Candi, released back in 2012.
As a key player in the local sneaker community, we knew his sneaker collection was something worth documenting. We’ve been following Chris ever since we caught his sneaker channel, noting the fact that he always gets his hands on most hard-to-cop sneakers.
“It happened in around 2009 when I was doing a DJ tour for adidas, they were doing a campaign at that time called ‘the go all-in’ with Daft Punk and a couple of other guys and I was part of the local sort of outlet for that. And that’s where I was able to go to adidas headquarters and pick up samples”, said Chris Jack.
“I picked up a pair of Star Wars Top Ten Low Droid and a couple of other pairs which were really in an awesome packaging”.
Chris is famed for his Sneaker Stories show, which started at the time Instagram launched their stories feature but now it is widely available also on Youtube.
“Sneaker Stories was basically born out of a passion project at the time when Instagram just launched ‘Instagram stories’. Until I built this room behind me and taken a photo on my personal Instagram account chr1sjack and people were like what is that?. And then there was more to offer from a content perspective, so I kinda formalized that into its own channel sneakerstories.tv. It’s something where I can basically offer information on particular pairs and really focus on the stories, the design, and materials behind the pair of shoes”.
Diving into his closet, allow us to say this is some sort of religion for him, coz of the consistency applied in the collection. You will surely notice more of the Three Stripes brand, from the first adidas YEEZY V2s, infamous 750s, and the latest models stacked in one row. There’s also a variety of Air Max models with some exclusives of course, and other striking kicks include the Off-White Nike collabs, Ultra BOOTS collabs, Alphaedge /Futurecraft 4Ds, as well as a bunch of staggering Air Jordans.
“For me I don’t think I’m influenced by any particular movement anywhere in the world. My collection is very diverse when it comes to brands, silhouettes, colours – I like to keep it exciting”.
“I think sneakers really unify people in a way that nothing else can, like you just need to look at the line outside the next YEEZY drop, for example outside Shelflife to really see how everybody is coming together for one like common goal of a pair of shoes and that for me has always been awesome”.
“I’ve made so many friends and so many connections just through buying sneakers over the years”.
Besides the sneakers, the closet is also occupied by streetwear pieces (jackets, tees, sports jerseys), accessories, and the Kaws Bearbricks amongst other toys.
Amidst the filming of this episode, Chris unveiled his ‘most valuable sneaker‘ which is the adidas Ultra Boost Uncaged Parley For The Oceans. The shoe was limited to 50 pairs worldwide and released via an IG comp in July of 2016. The shoe is currently valued at anything +R60K on the secondary market.
Make sure to watch the full episode with Chris Jack below, as he reveals other gems:
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