That time when… I was about to make a mistake, speaks an authenticator from StockX. “It was the usual pair of Yeezy 350 – the iconic Adidas sneakers created in collaboration with rapper Kanye West – and I was about to put the sticker 100% guaranteed authentic by StockX, when I had the scruple to check the inner soles. Well, the sneakers were fake, the inner soles were made of a non-original material.” We meet Adriano Arpino, a 27-year-old StockX authenticator, of very Neapolitan origins but born and residing in London, at the side of Sneakerness Milano, the event for sneaker collectors that we had already announced. There are about 100 StockX authenticators, distributed in the 5 warehouses of the American unicorn, a dozen are stationed in London but tend to grow at the same rate as the locations. And it is by no means unlikely that the next opening will be in the area. Difficult to find an official announcement for the search for an authenticator, because until yesterday no one imagined it was a profession. And yet, the success of StockX and, in general, of the sneaker collecting market and the resale of used items, with a calculated value in the order of a few billion dollars, has called for the definition of this mythological figure, obviously very coveted by young people.

An extraordinary eye and touch (and plenty of experience)

“I was hired thanks to a friend who worked at StockX,” says Adriano. “He knew about my passion for sneakers and streetwear, I am a small collector, I have around a hundred models and in ten years of honorable collection, I have even been tricked a few times. In short, I know a bit about it.” After the first interview with a practical demonstration, Adriano worked alongside older colleagues for three months, after which he was confirmed by StockX. Today Adriano checks about 55 pairs per hour (almost one pair per minute, ed.), and if we do a small multiplication (55×8 working hours and for 10 authenticators), we immediately realize the volume of sneakers that pass through the London warehouse. “Out of the 55 I check every hour, on average 3 are fakes, and often even the sellers don’t know it,” explains Adriano. The most counterfeited are certainly the Yeezy and the Nike Off-White, the most coveted ones, those with more demand. But we must not underestimate other models, especially those with “affordable” prices around a hundred euros, precisely because of the accessible price they have significant sales volumes and therefore attract counterfeiters.”

An authenticator’s checks do not only concern authenticity, but also factory defects and size verifications because a sneaker changes value, by a lot, depending on the size. The work mainly involves two senses: sight and touch. “I start from the box, I touch and observe it, from the papers that wrap the shoes, from the bags containing the spare laces,” explains Adriano. “Recognizing the quality and assembly of the accompanying materials allows you to make a great selection. Then we move on to the analysis of the shoes. With sight, I analyze the details, from the stitching to the laces, from the color shades to the logo design and its position. And then I move on to touch. I feel the materials, outside and inside, fold the shoes, stress them, remove the inner soles. Fake Yeezys, for example, can be recognized by bending them: if they are too soft, it’s better to doubt.”

“We work a lot together as authenticators,” continues Adriano, “we continually compare and share photos among all the warehouses around the world to compare colors and details, in the end, we manage to achieve an error margin of just 0.1%.”

StockX is certainly not the only marketplace where experts work to authenticate products. All vintage buying and selling sites, like Vestiaire Collective for example, guarantee the authenticity of a item after analyzing it, but in this case, the value of authenticity is greater since they are collectible sneakers with a fluctuating quotation, so it’s forbidden to wear them, even just once.

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