As an educator, historian and administrator, Joshua Zbinded has devoted most of his life to nurturing the minds of others. He’s taught at a university in Bogota, Colombia and worked with students in his local juvenile justice center, and now he works full-time as a high school economics teacher. Outside of the textbook deep-dives, test grading and report cards, however, there’s one hobby that he holds near and dear to his heart: collecting sneakers.
“Bob Marley has a line in his song “No Woman No Cry” where he sings ‘My feet are my only carriage’ and that always hit me because I realized that no matter what we’re doing, where we’re going and who we are, it’s our feet that keep us moving”, Zbinden tells Hypebeast. “So the sneakers we wear tell a lot about what we represent.” Growing up in Chicago in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Zbinden was captivated by Michael Jordan’s prowess on the hardwood and the global impact he’s had on culture, so it was only right that he highlighted a signature Jumpman model for his Sole Mates installment, so he elected to go with the first silhouette he ever copped: the Air Jordan 4.
