I learned the art of gift giving from my friend Matt Wilson. He and I work at The Daily Show together — he’s the on-set photographer, I’m an associate producer. When he’s not in the studio, he’s photographing stand-ups like Roy Wood Jr. and Michael Che or touring with his friend the comedian and former Daily Show host Trevor Noah. Wherever he is, he’s always sporting a pair of Nikes. Matt is a serious collector, which he says is different from being a “sneakerhead” who prizes only the scarcity of a shoe. “For me, the shit also has to be fly. It’s got to be for the fashion of it all,” he has told me in the past (for example, Matt wore his Off-White x Nike Air Force 1 “Lemonades” with a Prada suit to the 2022 Emmys).
He tapped into this skill set a few years ago to find the perfect present for Trevor. Like any good gift giver, Matt already knew what his recipient might want: He and Trevor had quickly bonded over shoes after Matt started at the show in 2021. He learned that while Trevor does have an impressive selection of Nikes, he doesn’t consider himself a collector. “He appreciates style but also wants to be comfortable,” Matt explains. “So the toughest thing with him is trying to find a shoe that checks both of those boxes.”
Matt’s aha moment came after wearing his NikeLab Air Max 1 Pinnacles to the Daily Show offices. Trevor immediately noticed. “Oh, I like those,” Matt remembers him saying. This is it, Matt thought, the perfect gift. “He’s the kind of guy who can get anything, and here’s something I know he likes.”
After checking all the usual collectors’ sites like StockX, Flight Club, and GOAT for the shoe in a U.S. men’s 11, Matt struck out. He realized that because this particular shoe hadn’t been hyped — meaning it wasn’t part of a limited-edition rollout or high-profile collaboration — it was actually harder to find because sneakerheads weren’t snatching it up to resell.
But Matt, who once spent seven years tracking down a specific pair of Nikes for himself (the Haze x Nike Air Force 1’s, for those wondering) wasn’t even close to giving up. Besides, he had the ultimate cheat code when it comes to shoe sourcing. “Because I owned the shoe, I had the style code,” he says. This allowed him to cut through endless web pages of Air Max 1’s to find the exact right pair. He kept searching.
A month went by. Then another. Finally, he turned to a website that had been abandoned by many shoe collectors: eBay. Again, Matt knows shoes and the market, and he knew eBay had recently revamped its shoe-verification process to cut down on counterfeits. So using eBay’s professional authentication system (and his own keen eye, of course), he found one pair from a seller in Romania. Unworn. Legit. U.S. men’s size 11. Matt ordered the shoes, and they arrived just in time for Trevor’s birthday. He was “extremely grateful,” Matt says.
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