SneakerDenn: Your Friendly, Neighborhood Dunk Connoisseur
It all begins with an idea.
Every true sneakerhead needs a plug. Whether it’s your local mom and pops mainstay, the kid from your neighborhood who stayed with the flyest pair, or the person who seems to always get lucky on the SNKRS app and swears they don’t have a bot (we all know who I’m talking about.) And in a world of headless fit pics and a recent craze over Nike dunks most people weren’t even alive for the release of—one guy stands out from the rest. Dennis Mazur, better known to his 36,000 Instagram followers as @Sneakerdenn, is hooking up A-listers, NBA superstars, OG buyers and 17-year-old hypebeast tik-tokers alike. His page is part an ode to the culture for OG sneakerheads and a perfectly curated mood board and history lesson for newbies. Mazur serves as the great equalizer between the two parties that has the gatekeepers calling the other “trendy hypebeasts,” but unlike the former, he doesn’t judge for a lack of knowledge, but instead inspires you to delve into the world behind what’s on the feet of your favorite rapper or athlete.
From Left to Right: New Orleans Pelicans’ Eric Bledsoe, Utah Jazz guard Jordan Clarkson and Jrue Holiday of the Milwaukee Bucks, all rocking dunks supplied by Mazur.
Complex’s Joe La Puma sporting a pair of ‘NL UNDFTD’s’ from SneakerDenn
Originally hailing from France, Mazur is now based in London, but his reach is global. And despite having a clientele list that’s growing by the minute, and launching his own OUTSOUL™ brand, he found some time to chop it up and talk with me about his journey into the sneaker game, the resurgence of dunks and his viral post that nearly broke the internet! Today we’re gonna sit down with him to see what he’s feeling, what he’s not—damn this ain’t sneaker shopping.
Anyways check out our exclusive interview with the world’s dunk supplier below.
How did the idea for the Sneakerdenn page come about?
Well initially, Sneakerdenn existed before as @Sneakerdenn7, it had like 100 followers, just some of my friends and most of them didn’t care about what I posted. But then I got into selling dunks in like October or November of 2019 and I was buying a lot of the ‘Be True to Your School’ dunks at the time [pictured above] and I figured I could take some really cool pictures of them and post to Instagram. That’s when I really started getting into the [dunk] community because before that I loved sneakers but kind of just on my own. I started reaching out to pages and sellers who were already established and they reposted my pictures and from there it kind of took off.
The U.S. and the U.K. have always had different styles, especially when it comes to sneakers, how have you seen social media influence the similarities we see now?
I would still say there is still a pretty clear divide, I mean I’m based in Europe but my market is definitely in the U.S. there’s no question about that. I know from my selling experience that in L.A. and the west coast, dunks and the whole vintage style are huge there and I didn’t know much about that before I started selling. But I feel the interest is picking up out here, I think Europe is always a bit behind in terms of sneaker trends.
And would you say that’s because of the influence of basketball and sports culture in the U.S. as opposed to Europe?
Absolutely. So much of sneaker culture comes from sports and people being influenced by what they watch. In Europe, the main sports are rugby and soccer, so there’s nothing that can compare with the NBA’s influence fashion-wise. A lot of soccer players aren’t really that cool, so there aren’t those role models that you’re going to emulate, whereas in the U.S. sports and fashion go hand in hand.
New York Knicks point guard Immanuel Quickley, repping the home team with a pair ‘Knicks’ dunks from Sneakerdenn
You’ve built up an insane clientele list in such a short time, how have you been able to organically grow such a diverse group of customers?
Honestly, Instagram is an amazing tool to get in contact with different people and obviously getting reposted by big pages helps out a lot cause then different celebrities and athletes see the posts and DM me, so it’s been really cool.
I know you hoop a little bit and while you yourself weren’t able to make it to the NBA, the sneakers you supply players with have. How does that feel to live vicariously through the sneakers?
The sneakers are literally carrying out my dreams. We’ve all had our baller hopes, but it feels amazing to see a pair of shoes that were sitting behind me a week ago, now sitting in an NBA locker room on the teammate of James Harden—it feels like I’m that close.
Left: OKC Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in a pair of ‘Fragment Design City Pack London’ dunks
Right: NBA Sneaker King PJ Tucker of the Milwaukee Bucks in the ‘Dark Sulfur’ Nike dunk high
You posted the family and friends Travis Scott PlayStation dunks on Instagram that practically broke the internet, I’ve got to hear the story behind how you got your hands on them.
Ah man, you’re gonna be disappointed bro…Pulls out a pair of Wolf Grey Summit Nike SB Dunks… So basically when I saw the PlayStation dunks, I thought to myself, they really have something in common, the tan suede and grey color blocking and I was like I gotta do it. So I sent a photo of [the Wolf Grey SB’s] to my guy who helps me with my website and he photoshopped it.
The infamous photoshopped ‘Travis Scott x PlayStation’ Nike Dunk low
That’s a classic story!
It’s like a lie by not telling. When people ask me I usually tell them it’s photoshop, other times it’s just—shrugging shoulders. A couple of NBA players actually DM’d me asking for them and then I sent them the original picture and they were like '“you’re goated for that!” It was definitely worth it.
Walk me through the process of what it’s like tracking down dunks especially amid their recent surge in popularity.
It’s just a lot of research all over the place, now I do it a bit less just because I’ve got a lot of stock and people hit me directly about pairs which makes it a lot easier. But up until very recently, I would spend hours every day on all websites in all countries, whether that’s eBay or Grailed or equivalent sites all over the world. For me, it’s like the same thrill of looking for a personal pair—it’s not like looking for a recent Jordan release, you can get as many of those as you want, but these[dunks] are rare.
Do you foresee dunks getting played out? And if so, what’s the shoe that you feel will replace it?
Unfortunately, I feel like Nike is going to oversaturate the market and the fact that they’re going to be so widespread with so many different colorways, that will kill the hype for sure. But when it comes to those colorways that are not going to be retroed—like the Stussy or Olive dunks, it would be a shame if they retroed those. But it’s such a classic silhouette and if you still have those colorways that are harder to find, they’ll still be respected and loved. In terms of what’s next, I believe that right now vintage is the vibe, so we may see more original Nike silhouettes, like the Air Force II, Nike Terminators and the Nike Blazers as well.
Who's the most surprising person to hit you up for a pair?
For me, it’d probably have to be Virgil [Abloh] because he actually reached out to me and hit me up. So actually a day before he posted a pair of Celtic dunks he had been looking for and found in Japan on his Instagram, I posted a pair of my own and tagged him in it and it was almost too much of a coincidence. And literally, five minutes later I got a message from him asking what do I have in his size. I was just in shock and then I saw he followed me and like a few of my photos, so that was a crazy moment. Chloe Grace Moretz was another surprise as well, she loves dunks and she knows her stuff as well.
You’ve also recently launched a brand ‘Outsoul™’ where did the idea for that come from?
I think the whole sneaker culture of the 80’s is so important nowadays and everything stems from there, the Air Forces (1982), Jordan 1’s and Nike Dunks (1985) and when you look at what all these silhouettes have in common is how similar their outsoles are. And I just think there isn’t that one brand that speaks to the sneaker lover and brings all those worlds together. So that’s what I’m hoping to create and explore the history behind the classic models and focus the details that most people don’t necessarily pay attention to but are what make sneaker culture what it is today!
Be sure to follow @Sneakerdenn and @Outsoul__ on Instagram to stay up to date on what Dennis has going on!
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more of the Up and Coming blog!