This week, we’re excited to highlight Greg, known to The Kingsland Shoe Project family as @air.macs. Based in Scotland, Greg is a creator whose page feels like a true reflection of sneaker culture at ground level. On feet, lived in, and personal. With a wide ranging collection, his content celebrates sneakers as they’re meant to be worn and experienced.

What sets Greg apart is the authenticity behind his lens. His on feet shots are effortless and honest, often woven into moments with friends, his dogs, and everyday life. There’s a genuine love for Nike SBs, photography, and community that runs through his feed, making each post feel more like a snapshot of real sneaker life than a staged shoot.

We’re proud to feature Greg as part of The Kingsland Shoe Project Family and look forward to watching him continue to document sneaker culture through his collection, his relationships, and his unmistakably personal point of view.

If you care about how your shoes look, feel, and how long they last, shoe trees are one of the most powerful shoe care tools you can add to your routine.

A shoe tree is an internal foot-shaped support structure you place inside your shoes when you’re not wearing them. Its job is simple: help shoes keep their shape, dry properly, limit odors, and avoid deep creasing. That might sound small, but from a materials and footwear-science point of view, it’s a big deal.

Inside a recently worn shoe, the microclimate is warm and very humid. Studies measuring in-shoe environments during wear show temperatures commonly in the high 70s to mid-90s °F (around 27–37 °C) with relative humidity high enough to encourage bacterial growth. Add the fact that each foot has roughly 250,000 sweat glands and can produce up to around a half-pint of moisture a day, and you’ve got a very damp little ecosystem inside your footwear. Left unmanaged, that heat and moisture deform materials, speed up creasing, and create a perfect home for odor-causing microbes.

Historically, people solved this with wooden shoe trees, especially cedar. Today, many also reach for cheap spring-loaded plastic trees. But modern footwear and modern lifestyles need something better: a shoe tree that supports the full front of the shoe, allows airflow during the 8-10 hour drying process, travels well, and is simple enough to use every day.

In this guide, we’ll walk through the benefits of shoe trees for each type of shoe and explain why modern shoe trees are a smart, contemporary answer to the question: “Do I really need shoe trees?”

We’ll also look at the pros and cons of cedar shoe trees and cheap spring-loaded plastic trees, and why a lightweight, open, single-mold design is often the best daily solution to keep shoes feeling fresh and looking new at home or on the go.

This week, we’re excited to highlight Steven, known to The Kingsland Shoe Project family as @cultivatingcool Based in the U.S., Steven is a creator whose love for sneakers, culture, and visual storytelling is clear in every post. His content blends footwear with lifestyle, capturing sneakers not just as products, but as part of everyday moments, movement, and self-expression.

What makes Steven’s page stand out is his ability to tell stories through his lens. From carefully composed on-feet shots and moody visuals to lifestyle-driven sneaker photography, each post feels intentional, authentic, and creatively grounded. His feed doesn’t just show sneakers, it highlights the feeling, mindset, and culture behind them.

We’re proud to feature Steven as part of The Kingsland Shoe Project family and look forward to watching how he continues to cultivate cool through his unique perspective.

Name: Steven Antoine

Socials: @cultivatingcool (IG)

2025 was a wild year for footwear. 3D-printed Air Max experiments, tweed golf shoes for The Open, BMX storytelling Jordans, loafers with performance sockliners…and a lot of debate in our group chats about what actually deserves a spot in our rotations.

This list isn’t meant to be the definitive ranking for everyone. It’s a love letter to the 25 pairs we kept coming back to at The Kingsland Shoe Project this year – the ones with real craft, personality, and staying power. The stuff you want to protect, break in slowly, and keep looking fresh for years.

You’ll see everything from dress oxfords and heritage boots to techy runners and collabs that broke the internet. Different vibes, same core standards: materials, build, comfort, story, and that magic “I need these” feeling.

25 Pairs We Loved in 2025

Most people assume shoe damage comes from mileage, terrain, or the natural “wearing down” over time. In reality, the science is clear: moisture is the single fastest way to degrade a shoe’s structure, comfort, and lifespan. And almost every pair we own is staying wet far longer than we think.

What Really Happens Inside Your Shoes

During a run, your feet heat up and sweat, a lot. Feet contain more sweat glands per square inch than almost anywhere else on the body and sealed athletic shoes trap nearly all of that moisture. Combined with rising heat from movement, the inside of your shoe quickly becomes its own humid microclimate. Temperatures climb to around 85-100°F, humidity spikes to 70-95%, and every material inside the shoe begins to absorb, hold, and react to that moisture.

And this is where the real damage begins.

Modern running shoes are built with multi-layer foams, synthetic textiles, adhesives, and supportive materials that react very poorly to warm moisture. Foams soften and lose structure. Adhesives weaken. Mesh and knit uppers stretch when wet and dry in whatever collapsed position they settle into. Midsoles compress unevenly. Over time, the shoe doesn’t just smell or feel damp, it literally changes shape.

When heat expands the foam and moisture softens it, the shoe becomes pliable. When you take the shoe off after a run, it cools and dries in that softened shape. If the toebox is collapsed inward, it dries collapsed. If the vamp is creased or curled, it stays that way. And this cycle repeats after every workout.

This is why shoes begin to show deep flex-point creasing, toebox collapse, and reduced cushioning long before they should.

Meet Serena Amitrano, the creative force behind @seretouil She's a true sneaker connoisseur and trendsetter whose style speaks louder than words. From the way she laces up to the way she styles every fit, Serena turns sneaker culture into an art form.

Her looks are clean, her confidence unmatched, and her ability to merge fashion and function keeps her ahead of the curve.

Serena doesn't just wear sneakers, she lives them, bringing her own flair and personality to every pair.

We're hyped to have her as part of The Kingsland Shoe Project family, keeping her rotations fresh with Fresh Flows and our premium sneaker wipes. Because when it comes to style, Serena doesn't miss and neither do her kicks.

Name: Serena Amitrano

Socials: @seretouil IG & TikTok

You might think you’re doing your shoes a favor by slipping in those budget plastic shoe trees - but the reality is, most of them are doing more harm than good.

At The Kingsland Shoe Project, we’ve seen it all. Shoes that lose their shape, crease in all the wrong places, and break down way faster than they should - often because they were paired with the wrong kind of shoe tree. And the biggest culprit? Cheap, spring-loaded plastic and metal trees.

The Sneaky Stretch That Leads to Damage

Most plastic shoe trees rely on spring-loaded tension to "fit" your shoes. But that tension is exactly what distorts them.

These springs push back on the heel and up on the toebox, stretching leather, mesh, and other materials beyond their intended shape. That distortion doesn’t just warp the silhouette; it actually causes more creasing across the vamp (the top of your shoe. Over time, this stress accelerates wear and leaves even premium shoes looking prematurely beat-up.