I wanted to share a story unlike the ones I usually tell, breaking down brands their stories and how they came about. I wanted to talk about an experience, something I still think about today: The Boot sale back in 2023.

So I was just starting to get more tapped into the streetwear scene, learning about different brands. Early on, one of the brands I really fell in love with was Broke, not just their garms but just their story, energy and the collective as a whole, that was running the streets of CPT and slowly the country.

Of course being based out of Pretoria I couldn’t really experience what the brand was as a concept or feeling they curated in CPT. Getting killed by FOMO, I always wondered what the energy of Broke was. Then one day, I popped on the gram and saw the boys were coming through to JHB. Instantly, I hit up my brother, who knew nothing about the streetwear scene or anything that was going on in the fashion space and just asked him “ayy man can you take me here”.

To this day, there’s probably no experience in terms of pop-ups that I felt when I went there, I still have the bag that I got when I copped the caps with me to remind me of the moment. The experience of not only seeing the people that you were studying or tapping into or just genuinely interested in but seeing the garms that you spent weeks and weeks, liking, sharing and talking about with your broers, and on top of that, it getting sold out of your dream car? Ahh, you’re jokinggg. I’ve been to countless pop-ups, whether standstill in a shop or whether running in the streets of Rosebank, but nothing can replicate the energy of that day, it was bigger than just clothes out of a boot, it felt like a real moment, a special moment for culture. Just being in the line getting that free Redbull, talking with broers about how far the brand has gone and talking about how much we love the space that fashion is in and the future of what it could become, that was my first experience of something that honestly felt like culture.

I think what makes the Boot sale special, is the fact that it’s an experience that really felt real and intentional, I thought to myself this is probably how the international broers experience their popups, some shit you would’ve seen on Hypebeast in 2017, but now this moment is coming back, bigger and better.

More brands more people and more room for moments. I think about this activation and I think about the kids who are going to come through after travelling for a cool hour to meet broers they’ve been tapping in with on the net, getting to see the garms they’ve saved in their wishlist and getting to experience the energy of this SA streetwear scene on a mass scale. The kid that’ll finally get to tap in with Rapid or Veter, the kid that’s been talking about the Balatron camo 2 piece at school, the kid that’s itching to show Zaid his gram and the kid that’s gonna be introduced to it all.

This is really my “fashion week” if I’m being honest, this feels the realest to me and the most honest, getting to experience the product of people chasing their dreams and getting to be with their community, in a way a coffee shop can’t, in a way a crazy street chase can’t or a runway that took 8 months to plan can’t. It’s a Boot Sale by the Broke Boyz.

Anyways familia can’t wait to see you out there, stay blessed, stay calm and collected and be sure to tap in. The Boot sale tour is hitting your city on the following days:

📍PTA – 25 July
📍JHB – 26 July
📍VAAL – 27 July
📍DBN – 2 August
📍GQ – 9 August
📍CPT – 30 August

Majority of these captured by @artssy20/ Sean Nkomo