To all valued customers, suppliers and visitors to Footpatrol, Footpatrol opened in 2002 in Soho, London stocking select sneakers and footwear. Our mission was to find the best of the best across various footwear brands and to create special projects with our partners. Our lease at 16A St Anne’s Court has come to an end and we have decided not to renew. We will therefore close the physical store at the end of March 2008. In the meantime, we will be having a clearance sale at 16A St Anne’s Court. We are continuing to work with our suppliers on some special projects. These will appear over the summer at our other stores - Stussy on 19 Earlham Street and The Hideout on 7 Upper James Street. Please check our websites and Crooked Tongues for more information closer to the release time. Thank you for your support and custom over the past five years.
The Footpatrol Team
A legend, an institution in the sneaker scene of yore is closing its doors very soon. Footpatrol had established itself and stamped a giant footprint in the echelons of sneaker culture ever since its doors slid open in the cranny that is St. Anne's Court in London.
Though small for a sneaker store, this was not your average run-of-the-mill sneaker store. In the following years since opening, one could walk in and find some of the rarest and most sought after releases, if you were quick enough to beat away the crowds of frenzied sneaker lovers baying for the hottest tier-0 drops. With its caged interiors displaying only the most exlcusive, limited edition sneakers, it soon became a must go store for any sneakerhead who lives in or visits London. Coupled with Footpatrol being located in an obscure little alley away from the highstreet stores, it made true a sneaker lovers dream of tracking down that hard to find store that held many a treasures.
Once people caught wind of London's only tier-0 account, queues started to form before hyped releases. Footpatrol played host to a multitude of rare releases which include Stash AF1 Hi's, London Dunk SB, DUNKLE, Amsterdam AM1, HTM releases, the first Adidas Consortium series, and a host of queue-snaking warranted shoe releases.
What set Footpatrol apart was the top notch customer service one would get, no matter where you were from. The guys there were accomodating and knowledgable with enough time for good customer service to boot. Always up for a chat and well organised when it came to crowd control when queues formed overnight, they even went out of their way to provide extras for enthusiastic campers...from pizzas (DUNKLE drop) to tea and biscuits in a FP mug (FB Stab drop), they made every exclusive drop that much more special with freebies and stickers.
Camping out at Footpatrol with fellow sneaker mates was always good fun. Never once have we experienced a hostile queue and everyone was out for a laugh an a bit...brilliant vibe.
Footpatrol holds a tender place in our Sole Obsession hearts...it formed a part of us and moulded what Sole Obsession was borne out of. We remember the 15 hour camp out in the cold for London Dunks, New Year's day queue for Adidas Consortiums and just tapping on that sliding door, awaiting in anticipation what one could find in the caged display. With the internet and online sales and auction sites taking over the hunt for limited edition sneakers, the balance has unfortunately shifted and physical stand-alone tier-0 stores are being swept aside in view of bigger scale sneaker supermarkets that stock everything from general releases to quickstrike to garbage basically.
We hope among hopes that Footpatrol will resurface physically in the near future, the shop may be gone but their presence will definitely live on....tribute!!
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