CHICKS WITH KICKS

Imagine a sneaker collection so vast you’d need an NBA-size basketball court to showcase them. Meet “The Chicks with Kicks”— Peters sisters Ariana, 29, Dresden, 27 and Dakota, 23—who oversee one of the world’s largest sneaker collections, valued at more than $2 million. (They also have a fourth sister, Alexandra.)

The Boca Raton trio inherited the collection a decade ago from their father, Douglas Peters, a retired real estate developer, who began amassing pairs of his favorite sneakers in the 1980s. Now, more than 6,000 in all, the collection includes a curated list of rare prototypes, players’ editions and vintage sneakers.

“He started collecting when we were very young, [out] of sheer love of the sneaker; he’s a forward thinker,” says Ariana, who, along with her sisters, also runs the family’s brokerage business, Peters Realty.

“He always bought one pair to wear and another to collect, because he saw them as art. So we grew up wearing Air Force 1s to elementary school instead of ballet slippers and sandals.”

In 2015 the collection became an international sensation when Dresden coined the ‘Chicks With Kicks’ Instagram moniker and posted a pair of classic Nike Air Force 1s, popularized by the movie “Entourage,” which was based on the hit HBO series (2004-11).

“The timing was parallel with the sneaker market boom and gained a lot of traction right away,” recalls Ariana. “When Sneaker News picked us up in January 2020, within 48 hours we had major collectors reaching out to us. That’s when my other sister and I were like, ‘Whoa, we’re really onto something!’ From there we began talking about what we would post on Instagram the next day.”

Sneakers aren’t just business. The Peters sisters, like their father, are passionate consumers: Ariana prefers New Balance; Dresden, Nike Daybreak and Cortez; and Dakota likes her Nike SBs, says Ariana: “Lately, she’s very into the new collectors’ editions.”