This will probably come as no shock but the sneaker game is big business right now. Last month revealed Mr Kanye West to be worth an estimated $6.6bn, with his Yeezy sneaker empire, rather than musical exploits, making up the bulk of that. The brand is valued at up to $4.7bn, which puts the prices charged by resellers into perspective.

The four styles featured below – from the likes of Nike and New Balance, but also Mr Kim Jones and Maison Margiela, itself once famously namechecked by West – provide a snapshot of where sneaker culture is at right now. While all reissues of a kind, each, in its own way, points to the future. But which future will you choose?

Nike’s Dunk Low silhouette has never been short of admirers. But in recent years, the love for this shoe has touched the stratosphere, with everyone from Messrs Virgil Abloh and Travis Scott to Ben & Jerry’s wanting in on the action. The latest release, a second batch of the “Free.99” iteration, leans into pastel shades that wouldn’t look out of place within the ice-cream maker’s roster. The confectionery colourway properly pops here against the black base (a white base is also due to land), along with equally delectable details, including a price label motif on the sock liner and mismatched aglets on the laces.

Given that few of us have been anywhere near a live event in the past year, the new Converse marketing campaign, with its list of collaborators arranged as if on a festival poster, makes for a smart piece of branding, especially with Tyler, the Creator on the lineup. But top billing goes to Kim Jones, the British designer who now heads Dior’s menswear. His stab at the original Air Jordan from last year (examples of which were soon listed on resale sites at prices usually seen stickered to car windshields) will take some beating, but his take on the century-old shoe is quite something. Not so much reinventing the wheel as the ultimate elevation of the OG high-top basketball shoe. 

“When they go low, we go high,” as Ms Michelle Obama put it (or was it Ms Melania Trump?). The Classic Leather Tabi, however, is perhaps the best example of high and low culture coming together to create something magnificent. On one side, the Tabi, Maison Margiela’s iconic split-toe silhouette, the footwear of Japanese workers stretching as far back as the 15th century turned into an item worn on the runway. On the other, the classic 1980s runner, aptly called the Classic, that has been the go-to shoe of salt-of-the-earth geezers in pubs and on football terraces ever since. Margiela’s original shoe always was divisive, but the duality here is next level. This slight revision of the format sees a limited-edition hand-painted finish that serves as a further reminder of the grounded origins of the Reebok imprint (as the unofficial footwear of decorators across the land), if of a quality, and price point, far more lofty in stature.

New Balance’s original 990 tends to hog the limelight. Released in 1982, it was famously the first athletic shoe to break the $100 price barrier, but it terms of quality and technology more than justified the cost. But the shoe’s first major overhaul, 16 years later, was itself a massive leap forward, introducing reengineered foam cushioning, with a protruding bubble poking out the back of the midsole, and slip-resistant rubber to the sole. Perhaps the biggest selling point, though, was its provenance; as with most of the premium models in the Boston brand’s output, the 990v2 was made in the US. This reissue, in a pleasing neutral shade, advertises this fact with a prominent “USA” emblazoned on the heel.