What is a colourway?
A colourway is the set of colours used on one release of one model. Brands make a popular model in many colourways, and each colourway is a separate product. It has its own product code, its own release date and, on resale sites, its own price.
That is the reason colour matters more for shoes than for most clothes. A navy jumper and a grey jumper of the same style are the same product in two colours. Two colourways of the same trainer are two products, and on a resale site one can cost several times the other if it was made in smaller numbers.
Why does the colour find a shoe faster than the model name?
The model name gives you a shape. The colourway gives you a single product. If you search only the model, you get a long page of the same shape in every colour, and you have to scroll and compare by eye.
Add the colours in the right order and most of that page disappears. Add the nickname, if the colourway has one, and the first results are often the exact pair, because resale sites and blogs put the nickname in their titles. StockX, for example, lists the black and white Dunk as Nike Dunk Low Retro White Black Panda.
How do you read the official colour string?
Every colourway has an official colour string. It is printed on the box label and shown on the brand's own product page. It is a list of colour names in a set order.
On Nike shoes the first colour is usually the base, the colour that covers most of the upper. The colours after it are accents: the logo, the overlays, the sole. The black and white Dunk reads White/Black-White. White is the base, black is the overlays and swoosh, and the last white is the midsole.
adidas writes the string with slashes between every colour. The Samba OG in white with black stripes, product code B75806, reads Cloud White / Core Black / Clear Granite. Clear Granite is the grey of the suede toe.
The order rule has exceptions. Nike fans on the NikeTalk forum have pointed out that the brand has applied it unevenly over the past decade. When the string and the shoe seem to disagree, trust the shoe.
Why do brand colour names sound so strange?
Brands give their own names to shades, and they reuse those names across many products. A search for cream trainers will not match a listing that says Sail, even when the colour is identical. Knowing a few of these names turns a vague colour into a searchable word.
- Sail is Nike's off-white with a cream tint. It gives a shoe a warmer, older look.
- Summit White is a brighter white that Nike uses as an alternative to Sail.
- Cloud White is the standard white in adidas colour strings.
- Core Black is the standard black in adidas colour strings.
When you see a colour you cannot name, look up one listing of the model in a similar colour and copy the brand's word for it. The next search will match the way shops write.
Where do nicknames come from?
Nicknames come from buyers, forums, blogs and resale sites, and they stick when enough people use them. The box carries only the official string. They usually describe the colours or point to a place, a team or a person.
Panda describes the black and white Dunk, because the colours match the animal. Chicago describes Air Jordans in red, white and black, the colours of the Chicago Bulls. Bred is short for black and red. Sneaker News traces it to sneaker forums around the year 2000, where it named any Air Jordan built on those two colours.
That last point shows the weakness of a nickname. Bred has been used for several different Jordan models. Panda started on the Dunk, and StockX now also lists a Jordan 1 Low Panda. A nickname narrows a search, but you still need the model name next to it.
What if the colourway has no nickname?
Most colourways never get one. Nicknames gather around the pairs people talk about: early releases, collaborations, colours tied to a team. A general release in navy and grey usually has only its official string.
For those, search the model with the colours written the way shops write them, and expect each site to title the same pair differently. The black and white Dunk shows how far apart the titles can be. Nike's string is White/Black-White. StockX calls it White Black Panda. Flight Club lists it as Dunk Low Black White, with the black first. All three are the same shoe, style code DD1391-100.
So if a search in one order returns nothing useful, reverse the colours and try again. Sites that sort by the most visible colour and sites that copy the brand's base-first order will put them the other way round.
How do you turn the colours in a photo into a search?
- Find the two or three colours that cover most of the upper. Ignore the laces, which are often swapped.
- Decide which one is the base. It is the colour you would name first if you described the shoe out loud.
- Translate each colour into the brand's own word if you know it: Sail rather than cream, Core Black rather than black.
- Search the model with the colours in that order. Look at the titles of the results for a nickname that keeps appearing.
- If one does, search the model plus the nickname. That is usually the result list with the exact pair near the top.
Snagfit does the first two steps for you. Its result describes the shoe with its colours and searches listings with them. If the pair has a well-known nickname, you can add it to your own search afterwards to go straight to that colourway.
When do the colours in a photo lie?
Warm light turns white into cream. Indoor bulbs and sunset light add yellow. A pure white shoe can look like Sail, and a grey one can look beige. Compare the shoe with anything in the photo you know is white.
Filters change everything. Many videos use a colour filter, and it applies to the shoes too. If the skin tones and the background look tinted, assume the shoes are tinted by the same amount.
Old soles turn yellow. White rubber and foam turn yellow with age. A worn pair from a few years ago can look like a colourway with a cream sole when it was bought with a white one.
Custom pairs match nothing. Some people paint or dye their shoes. If the model is clear and no colourway matches after a careful search, the pair may be a one-off, and the closest you can buy is the model in the nearest official colours.