japan — The Deffest®. A vintage and retro sneaker blog.

Today we’re looking at the excellent Japanese sneaker collector book ‘‘C-Class sneaker collection. The joy of collecting” by Mikiji Nagai. We picked up this book because we’ve been continuing to research the strange case of the vintage Kinney NBA Le Village upside down swoosh sneakers to either confirm or disprove that they may have been manufactured by Nike. We’re still digging into that post and will hopefully have some kind of update down the line. This C-Class sneaker collecting book was published by Graphic-sha in 2021 and features 160 pages of 1970s and 80s deep cuts from the vintage sneaker market in Japan.

C-Class sneaker collection. The joy of collecting. Vintage sneaker book by Mikiji Nagai. Published by Graphic-Sha.

Cobra, Osaga, Jets and Cedar Crest 1970s and 80s vintage sneakers.

The book features some great photos of vintage runners and and other old school sneakers from a long list of brands including Airwalk, Asahi, Asics, Avia, Baliston, Bata, Bauer, Bravas, Brooks, Butting, Buster Brown, Cedar Crest, Cobra, Etonic, Jets, Jox, Kaepa, Karhu, KangaROOS, Keds, K-Swiss, Mizuno, Moonstar, Osaga, Romika, Saucony, Spot-Bilt, Vans, Wilson and more. The upside down swoosh sneakers on the cover were made by a brand call Raff’s shoes.

Raff’s brand 1970’s / 80’s upside down swoosh bootleg Nike sneakers.

If anyone is in the market for a holiday gift for the sneakerhead in your life this would be a cool item to give and we’ve included the book information below:

Author: Mikiji Nagai

Title: ‘C-Class sneaker collection’

ISBN: 978-4-7661-3489-6

Publisher: Graphic-sha

We’ll be posting articles a couple of more articles that reference this book over the next couple of days so stay tuned.

Hey all - just got back from Japan and had an awesome time there. It was a great trip. Both Tokyo and Kyoto have some incredibly well curated vintage clothing and sneaker shops. Below is a quick summary guide in case any of you venture across the pond.

Passover Evisu Tokyo sneaker logo store front

Koenji is the cool historic punk rock neighborhood of Tokyo and it is a gold mine of vintage shops. I saw some dope old 1970’s Skips by Montgomery Ward and some knock off Adidas country vintage sneakers at Grandberry Jam. Salers, right across the street, had some rare Nike waffles and really cool old school Trax by Kmart running shoes as well.

Vintage Trax, Skips by Montgomery Ward, and Nike sneakers at Grandberry Jam, Koenji, Tokyo.

Salers Koenji 2018 Tokyo vintage sneaker shopping guide @ The Deffest

If you’re poking around the neighborhood you may want to work your way a few blocks over to Top of the Hill Koenji and CA shop which are on the same street. They didn’t have any vintage kicks but they both had a pretty great selection of other american vintage items. Elsewhere in Tokyo I stumbled upon a sign for a closed down Thom McAn shop. Weird.

This Thom McAn was at 35.659840, 139.699131 on Google maps. You can see it if you zoom in on the left had side of the alley.

Another excellent neighborhood for shopping is in the Shimokitazawa neighborhood which has a surplus of vintage shops. Right in the heart of the neighborhood is Soma sneaker store, who may have the most impressive collection on vintage kicks that I’ve seen. Walking into this store is like walking into a waffle sneaker museum. If you’re ever in town I highly recommend you check it out. Some other good vintage stores in this neighborhood include New York Joe Exchange, Flamingo and Haight & Ashbury.

Vintage 1970's Nike Oregon waffle running shoes at Dockery Farm.

Kyoto had fewer vintage shops but there are definitely some finds to be had there. The Three Star Vintage store is huge and the staff was really nice. Dockery Farm had some excellent 1970’s Nike Oregon waffles as well. All in all this is really just scratching the surface. There were a ton of other shops that don't have an online presence but if you're in Japan all of the above are definitely worth checking out.