Image via John Phillips/Getty Images for BoF VOICES
Chances are, most people reading this are familiar with Jon Wexler through his work in sneakers.
With over two decades in footwear on his résumé, 17 years spent at Adidas and 10 of those working with entertainment’s biggest names, Wexler has seen sneaker culture grow from a connoisseur’s hobby to a full-fledged mainstream phenomenon. Now, after serving as general manager of Ye’s flourishing Yeezy brand for a year and then spending another year and a half at Shopify helping establish the e-commerce platform’s own creator and influencer program, Wexler’s moving on to what he sees as the next place to make an impact in collector culture.
Wexler is now the executive director at Fanatics Collectibles where he’ll be focusing on “collaborations and partnerships within the culture business” at the recently launched Zerocool. Working alongside Fanatics Collectibles co-founder and chief vision officer Josh Luber, Wexler and the former StockX CEO will look to grow the Zerocool trading card brand which focuses on pop culture, art, and entertainment instead of traditional sports cards.
The resurgence of trading cards isn’t a new thing. The already bubbling market (StockX officially added trading cards in 2019) was intensified by the pandemic, and it wasn’t long before people were buying, reselling, and recording videos of themselves unboxing cards the same way one would a pair of sneakers. And the trend isn’t showing any signs of slowing down—even Drake is getting in on the action.
We caught up with Wexler over Zoom to find out why this new role made sense, how he’s been able to prepare for it by way of his previous work in the sneaker industry, what his shoe collection is looking like these days, and the possibility of a Yeezy trading card. The conversation, lightly edited for clarity, appears below.
Congratulations on the new gig.
Thank you very much. Yeah, what an amazing opportunity. We were in Vegas this weekend and got to immerse in the whole culture and check out a show, and see the way other brands are presenting and what the opportunity really feels like is even more massive than I thought it was coming in. Really just thrilled to be part of this.
This world, is it all kind of new to you? Because I think for us the obvious question is, what made you make the move to Fanatics and Zerocool?
Sure. Well, for me I’ve been a collector my whole life, of various things. Obviously as a kid it was trading cards. I added comic books. I mean, at one point it was stamps and buttons too. I was going super into different categories. I still have my comic book collection and part of my vinyl collection and obviously my sneaker collection blossomed throughout the last decade.
From a collector standpoint, I was already passionate for it. Then when I saw what Fanatics was doing in terms of the collectibles and investments they’re making and how strong they’re going into the space, their ambition and determination really inspired me to want to be a part of it. I would say for me, I liken it to when we had that insight to inject that culture into what sneakers were about. Taking this traditionally sport legacy business and adding that cultural infusion unlocked an entire new audience and really brought new energy into the entire space. I think it’s going to be really transformative when we… I mean, we’ve already started to see the initial rollout and the impact so it’s great.
Yeah, I hadn’t even thought of that parallel. It’s interesting that you mentioned that.
Oh, absolutely. I feel like the kids that we train to look at these products as assets have kind of, some have stayed in that sneaker space, but a lot of them have moved out of there and started to get into collectibles of various forms. And with what Fanatics has been doing across their organization, it felt like when Josh gave me a shout and was telling me about what he was doing the opportunity to come join this thing from its inception was just too enticing to pass up.
How would you explain Zerocool to someone who’s completely unfamiliar, who’s looking at it from the outside in?
Zerocool is the culture card side of the Fanatics Topps trading cards organization [Ed. Note—Fanatics acquired Topps in January 2022]. I would look at it as the space where you can work with creators from all different pockets of pop culture. If you zoom out, there’s been trading cards from the various sports leagues forever. It’s similar to sneakers. And the thing that led to that insight a decade ago with sneakers was the splintering of the communication platforms where people are absorbing information. It wasn’t just about ESPN and athletes anymore, it was about music, entertainment forms, design, art.
So there’s an opportunity to enable those guys to get access to their audience for their audience to join in our movement. I think that that’s what’s interesting for me, seeing this massive audience of people who’ve kind of been overlooked by this community or by this industry who we can now offer that bridge to their consumer base. It’s going to be a lot of fun bringing that audience in.
Looking over your career, you were with Adidas, obviously a legacy brand, been around for ages. Shopify, you had a stint there. They’ve been in the game for a little bit too. What was it about Zerocool that made you want to take the jump [on such a new brand]?
Exactly what you just said. I’ve always been a part of these organizations that have given me the most unbelievable opportunities to somewhat do what I’m passionate about for a living. The gratitude I have for Adidas and Shopify is never ending. Similarly here, they’ve given me an opportunity to come in from the inception point and build something from scratch, which to me gives me a chance to really come in and shape what I think is going to be a transformative moment in this industry as a whole.
Just from the standpoint of feeling that I’ve left a legacy within the sneaker universe with what we did at Yeezy, and just this past weekend witnessing what Shopify and the Victor Victor Worldwide brand did at their space [for NIGO’s I Know Nigo album] this weekend weaving the culture into that. I can see a full calendar of launches once we fully dig in on this opportunity, where this will truly deliver the same type of new audience and the impact that I know we’ve done it before, and it’s got all the same building blocks.
Can you tease what some of those plans are?
Well, I mean no. But I can say that if you just look back over the last couple weeks, it’s been a really revealing, or not even the last few weeks, the last couple months. Just to go back to it, Topps trading cards has been around since 1938. So if you think about it from that perspective, they introduced Star Wars and Garbage Pail Kids late ‘70s, early ‘80s, I would say. And just this past couple weeks or last November at ComplexCon, they went off at their booth with the Garbage Pail stuff.
It’s kind of tacitly keeping track of all these moments that were being created. And then you look back over the recent weeks with what just happened with VeeFriends and the way that Zerocool articulated the information about the pack that was going to drop, how many cards would be distributed. They did the blind Dutch auction, which I will not even attempt to explain, but definitely go to the blog post that they just posted where they really broke down the entire rollout of that project.
For me, that was a great validation point for when you bring in creators from outside of sport who have an authentic voice with an audience and a compelling product and story to tell with them, and you show them that they can invest in that, what that can blossom to. The results were staggering. Then a week later, there was a project with Edison Chen and Clot and Nike, and Zerocool made the announcement over the weekend that Jackass is coming, which will be another great experiment.
So things are starting to come out. I’ve been here a week and the team that I’ve met over the weekend was just superb, dynamic, exciting. I cannot wait to really roll up our sleeves together and get after it. But they’ve set the table in such an amazing way. I just feel blessed to be a part of it.
Talking about your team a little bit, I know you’ll be working closely with StockX co-founder and CEO, Josh Luber. Have the two of you really interacted much prior to this?
It’s funny. Josh and my relationship dates back to his Campless days and we were introduced through a mutual friend. I was at Adidas 2010, ’11, I want to say, and my friend was like, “Oh, my friend is a sneakerhead, you should talk to him.” So Josh and I, to kind of put this in a time period, have been kind of going back and forth about sneakers since the ZX Flux days.
So, 2011, ’12, I want to say, maybe ‘10. So Josh and I have known each other for a while, interacted quite a bit through his StockX days, just kind of getting access to resell data and stuff like that was tricky and with what Yeezy did from going, Adidas was zero percent of the market, Yeezy launches became 40 percent of that market virtually overnight.
Again, speaking to the power culture in this legacy world. Josh is a true visionary and his presence had a great deal with my desire to join this company in addition, obviously the infrastructure. He’s a unicorn builder, Michael Rubin’s a unicorn builder. I’ve helped people build unicorns before and it’s just an amazing opportunity to be a part of this thing when we can really mold it.
Looking back at your career, you were working directly with recording artists early on and I feel like at Adidas, you were kind of able to use some of that experience with what you did there as well. Now at Zerocool, it almost feels like it’s going to be a natural progression. It sort of feels like not too far removed in a way.
I couldn’t agree more. I really feel like it’s a synthesis of what I was doing over the last 25 years, I would say, both at Adidas and Shopify, in terms of helping creators build their ideas into reality. Whether it was going way back into time with Snoop or Big Sean, into 2 Chainz, and then the great revelation of all revelations with Yeezy, and the partnerships obviously with Pharrell and Beyoncé as well.
Then learning about the streaming and space, et cetera, is just really fun to create that fabric around which the brand could bring in new audiences. Here, no doubt, it’s very analogous, and I cannot even express how much fun it’s already been to get into that territory again.
You spoke with us back when you started at Shopify, and one thing that stuck out to me was you said that you weren’t really leaving sneakers. So my question is, does this mean that you’re finally stepping away from this thing that you did for over 20 years or do you see footwear still being a big part of it?
I mean, last week they had a card in the Clot box. So, the whole world has turned into a swirl and consumerism is based off attention culture. Going back to that splintering of the communication world, there are heroes that emerge every day in various forms of subcultures that are leading the broader cultural landscape. As long as we have our eye to those kids and anticipate where the market is going and can kind of help them achieve that next level in their status.
Whether they’re sneaker designers or artists or musicians, the beauty is that it’s kind of an open playing field. It’s a complete blank canvas for us to go in and curate. So, I would say sneakers will never be too far from my hands. I think the energy of that audience and of the people that we built those ideas out with, there will be a lot of crossover into this space.