From 50 pairs of sneakers to 4000 models

How would you label Footshop? A fast-growing startup? The biggest sneaker store in the Czech Republic? The only Czech supplier of Yeezy and other exclusive brands? A member of the adidas Consortium and Vans Vault family? A streetwear supplier that also delivers information about the whole culture surrounding it? Footshop is all of the above, but it wasn’t always like that – let’s take a look at the beginnings of Footshop. Our first store is celebrating its 5^th year, so what better occasion to dive into Footshop’s history. And also take a peek into the future.

Footshop’s story begins with an 11-year-old from Košice named Peter Hajduček, who spent all his savings on a pair of sneakers – the Osiris D3’s. They represented the combination of two of his passions – skateboarding and graffiti. In 2008, Peter moved to Prague to study online marketing. Around this time, he decided he’d like to start selling sneakers, which led to Footshop, a company centered around sneakers, creativity and the street lifestyle being created in 2011. 

Back then, Footshop was just a tiny warehouse with 50 pairs of skate shoes, one employee and no spare change. Lifestyle sneakers started getting sold after the arrival of Peter ‘Kovo’ Kováč, who originally joined Footshop as a graphic designer. It was him who came up with the idea of switching skate shoes for lifestyle shoes, and some time later brands like Nike, adidas and Asics started appearing in Footshop’s portfolio.

2014 was a breaking point for Footshop. Preparations started for opening the first store in Bubenská, and 300 people came to the opening party in November. The store was open the very next day, but unfortunately in all the excitement, we forgot about the store clerks and the cash register. Even so, five pairs of sneakers were sold that day.

The era that followed is probably most fondly remembered by veteran employees. The brand grew, more sneakers came and more and more customers visited the Bubenská store, which also became a cultural meeeting point, with exhibitions, workshops and launch parties being organized. The biggest party that took place there was Footshop’s first birthday.

An open-air concert was held outside the store, with appearances from Haha Crew, Smack, Aless, Renne Dang etc. And an attendance of about 1000 people. And even though it was autumn, the weather was great.

After countless meetings and a long, drawn-out proccess, Footshop became a part of the adidas Consortium family, joining the ranks of only a few stores worldwide. The first adidas Consortium collaboration that arrived at our store was the UltraBoost Uncaged x HYPEBEAST. More great news followed soon – Footshop became the only sneaker store in the Czech Republic to stock the legendary adidas Yeezy, designed by Kanye West, one of the most influential artists of this generation – you might remember some of the first, massive in-store raffles.

If we skip over our first apparel collection with Bornbane, our second birthday, our first contact with Y-3 and the revamp of our website, we find ourselves in December 2016 in Bratislava. Why there? Because our second store just opened.

A year later, 2017, Footshop started venturing outside the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Our first stop was in Hungaria at the Kicks’R’Good event. When we first set up shop and unpacked our retail-priced Yeezys, the queue was probably bigger then the Kardashian family tree. Two months later, we made our way to London to visit Sneaker Con. We had a lot of success at this European permutation of the American festival thanks to our retail prices, which were quite unusual there.

A year later, in April, we returned to Hungaria, this time to open a new store – like they say, the third time’s the charm. Opening our third store balanced out the fact that we had to close our Bubenská store and transfer it to Vnitroblock, the multifunctional location in Holešovice.

Three countries, three stores. The number of employees rose from thirty to two hundred. We celebrated our succesful collaborations with LAFORMELA, Petra Ptáčková and Life is Porno on the roof of Lucerna by releasing our own sneaker, created in collaboration with the German brand KangaROOS – the Footshop x KangaROOS Ultimate 3 ‘The City of a Hundred Spires’, inspired by Prague, Footshop’s birthplace.

February 2019, Prague. We celebrated Valentine’s day with Footshop Friends and Family. We opened our second Prague store at Na Příkopě, where you can find a selection of the finest items in our portfolio – Raf Simons’s Ozweegos, CDG Shirt or for example pieces from Rick Owens.

Currently, we’re looking eastward towards our future. To be specific, to Bucharest, the capital city of Romania – the Romanians love our sneakers. We started working on this store even before opening the one at Na Příkopě. After months of hard work, the store will open on the 8^thof November. If you haven’t visited Bucharest before, now’s the right time to plan a trip.

Naturally, there were much more of Footshop’s milestones, as well as plans for the future, but that might be too much information to digest at the moment. Come visit the 5^th birthday party of our Prague store and become a part of our next milestone!