This brick-and-mortar store is a Northern Kentucky hypebeast’s nirvana.
Thanks to exclusive sneaker and streetwear boutique Sole by Style’s cult success, the business is moving into a new building next to Braxton Brewery. They’re currently at 617 Madison Ave., but owners Mitchell Wolfe and Jake Cain said they want more space to accommodate customer and host meet and greet events.
Their new address will be 45 West 7th St. Wolfe and Cain hope a meet-and-greet marketing strategy could potentially broaden the appeal of their brand, and that the new location by Braxton will help open them up more to the community.
What’s truly special about Sole by Style is that the store is selling an experience. A customer isn’t just going there to buy sneakers or clothes, but to be around other people with the same interests. The environment makes customers feel like they’re in a chill place. It’s a converging spot for a unique, highly fashionable subculture within the region.
There’s nowhere else like it in Northern Kentucky.
“I think it’s been a good thing for Covington,” Wolfe said. “We’re like a destination location, so if we move locations, they’re still going to come. Covington has improved a lot over the last few years so it’s always a good thing for people to come and spend money in Covington and spend more time here. When you go out in Covington, there’s more than just Sole by Style here.”
When you walk into Sole by Style, a playful dog named Rose, the store’s mascot, is eagerly waiting for you to step inside. To your left, you’ll see a large wall of plastic-wrapped, deadstock sneakers. To your right, you’ll see a clothes rack featuring Supreme clothing, one of the most popular streetwear brands in the world. There’s a featured display case decked out with miscellaneous Supreme items.
The company Instagram account boasts 44,000 followers.
Yeezy Boost 350s, Air Jordan 1 Lows, Nike x Travis Scott collaborations; a Northern Kentucky sneakerhead could find all those rare sneakers at Sole by Style.
Wolfe and Cain co-founded Sole by Style in June 2018, and now the business partners are leading a team of dedicated employees.
What brought the two together was their prior experience reselling shoes online and a shared love of sneaker culture. Wolfe combined his inventory with Cain’s intellectual property to form the business. Both men are graduates of the University of Cincinnati.
Cain “had the Sole by Style name,” Wolfe said. “I had class with him. I had a pretty large collection of shoes back in the day. I was into collecting. I knew I had a lot of inventory and knew a lot of people who sold shoes. I got with Jake and we decided we should go for it. He had the name and a website. Our skill sets are different but they complement each other very, very well.”
Another thing that differentiates Sole by Style from other brick-and-mortar sneaker/streetwear stores — and online resellers — is their website. It’s easy to navigate. A customer can find out what the store currently has in stock, filtered by size.
The company’s branding also sets them apart. Their minimalist, modernistic black box logo gives the Sole by Style brand an iconic look, and has become synonymous with the Greater Cincinnati area’s growing streetwear subculture.
“We thought the city needed something like this,” Wolfe said. “We thought our competitors didn’t quite capture what the city needed. We’d like to think we do both shoes and clothes very well.”
Sole by Style offers both deadstock and pre-owned sneakers. If a customer wants to buy a brand new pair of shoes wrapped in plastic, the store offers that. If a customer doesn’t want to pay the new shoe price and would rather buy a high-quality pre-owned pair of sneakers, they’ve got those, too. The combination of new and pre-owned shoes coupled with an offering of multiple reputable brands allows Sole by Style to carry a diverse inventory.
Wolfe started getting into shoes from 2008 to 2010. His drive for shoe collecting started off as a hobby in high school. He would attend sneaker conventions across the Midwest. As a dedicated sneakerhead, Wolfe would stand in long lines on the weekends waiting to cop a pair of new sneakers.
But Wolfe said he found it difficult to afford all the new drops while he was in high school. He decided to start buying the sneakers in bulk. Wolfe figured he could buy five pairs so he could get one pair for free. Wolfe’s hobby turned into a collection.
His collection turned into a business.
As Wolfe and Cain grew their business, they noticed the resale market was growing larger and larger.
“More people were hip to it. Parents are coming in to buy Yeezys now where a couple years ago, now you see them,” Wolfe said. “My Dad thought I was crazy. He’d say, ‘you’re going to waste your money buying all those shoes. You should be saving your money for college.’ I thought these shoes were going to be worth something someday. Luckily I was right. More kids are into it now. More kids are reselling. Back in the day it wasn’t as popular as a thing.”
With the popularity of sneakers and streetwear becoming more noticeable in mainstream culture, Wolfe and Cain would observe all kinds of different people checking out their store throughout the day.
“We see a lot of different genres of people come through the store on a day-to-day basis, which is really awesome,” Wolfe said. “The store is like a coming-ground for people who share the same common interest. It’s a nice common ground where people can come to relate to something.”
Sole by Style was gaining traction in the community before the rug was nearly pulled out from under them. The COVID-19 pandemic hit Covington, and just about everywhere else, hard. Sole by Style had to shut its doors while planning a new course of action. Wolfe and Cain focused on their online store as the pandemic kept their physical location shuttered.
“We were closed for about six or seven weeks,” Wolfe said. “It was definitely kind of scary. We had been open for about two years, then after the pandemic hit, we had to close up. Once we were able to open back up, we had some of our best months ever. It was scary then, but it was really good. As a business owner, you never think about something like that ever happening. We’re very fortunate to still be here. It was a really interesting time for that six month period.”
Consignment is a big part of filling Sole by Style’s inventory. It increases the total inventory of the store. By allowing consigners and other sneaker resellers a chance to sell their inventory within the store, it gives Sole by Style more opportunity to work together with the broader sneaker community. Consignment also gives Sole by Style an opportunity to have more rare sneakers to market with. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement for both the cosigner and the business.
“We might sell 10 pairs of shoes in a day, but we might buy 20 pairs of shoes in a day, Wolfe said. “People bring us shoes to buy, sell and trade.”
