A Bathing Ape-the freshest company of 2k6

SO I don't know how I've managed to do this for so long, but until this point I have failed to mention Japanese sneaker power company/harbingers of this new age of sneaker love: A Bathing Ape:

A Bathing Ape is helmed by a designer called 'Nigo' and their signature 'Bapesta' shoe really rocketed sneaker collecting into the mainstream when rappers like Lil' Wayne and Kanye West, and Rockers like Julian Cassablancas of The Strokes started wearing them around 2005.

since then Nigo has helped Pharrell Williams of the band N.E.R.D. start the high end 'Billionaire Boys Club' fashion line, designed shoes for Nike, released an album with his Japanese Rap Group the Teriyaki Boyz...

oh, he also took some time to release the new spring colorway bapestas above...

No real commentary on this one...I'm just curious as to how does all of this at once.

this is not a Kanye West blog-new kanye news!

So some of you may feel that over the months I have featured a disproportionate amount of time covering Kanye West and his many sneakers...For those who hold an issue with this I bring you-

A closer look at the Kanye WestXnike Air Yeezys!!!!

Complex Magazine has posted an interview of Mr. West and Creative Director of Special Projects at Nike, Mark Smith.

In the grand scheme of things I haven't really been in the 'sneaker game' for that long, but in the five or six years of seriously spending all of my money on sneakers I have never seen a shoe that people cared so much about made by a guy [Kanye] that so many people claim to hate...

...just putting it out there...

Nothing is really new these days [high top edition]

so here's the setting:

New York 1985.

the shoe:

hightop Nike flight...fresh:


fast forward->the setting:

the internet 2009

the shoe:

DC LIFE Admiral for BLENDS



i already have these shoes!

-stop making me re-buy the same shoes, I'm not recession proof.

...just putting it out there

Nike, you're not even trying anymore...

now I'm going to preface this post with a small disclaimer:
I love Nike just as much as every other black guy in the world, and we all know that black people love Nike.

But we all know that lately I've had some beef with Nike,
mostly that for the last few years they've basically given up on doing any work outside of re-releasing shoes that were awesome a few years ago...example:




Here are three shoes-the Nike Woven Footscape 360...one of those shoes is an original released in 1994, the other is one of the 'one time only' re-releases from 2007, and another is the latest footscape 360 that has been re-re-released this month..

come on Nike, I'm going to stop buying new shoes and start wearing the same pairs of Nikes for like ten years...that way every few years Nike can re-release them and I can be cool for having the originals.

so, we're running out of good ideas...

so there are some new 'hot' shoe collabs 'dropping on us sometime in the near future the nikeXterminator Terminator Hi Supreme:

now if you look closely you may notice that one of those shoes is is brown, the other, a minty blue...

this is not a way to showcase two colour ways, this is not a mistake, this is how these shoes look when you purchase them, you get one blue, and one brown.

it's supposed to be following a mint-chocolate theme or something that they just randomly decided to get behind.

not cool.

...just putting it out there.

why couldn't it have been this awesome the first time around?

so, most of us remember a few months back when Kanye west changed/ruined the world by releasing his new 'hot' shoe with Luis Vuitton? many of you probably remember that those were in so many words 'the ugliest shoes ever'. Now alot of people in the sneaker world were confused when the LVxKanye Collabs came out because for months after last months Grammy's there were rumors, and even photos of an un-identified custom nike that Mr. west had worn on the show as well as several other occassions. well here they are, ladies and gentlemen i present-the 'Air Yeezy':

Now are they perfect?-no
do they come in other less purple colors?-yes
and why do they not look like a little kid threw up carnival food all over them like his other shoes?-answer?

he didn't design these. the shoe was actually done 'in collaboration' with legendary shoe designer Mark Smith, who is the creative director of special products at Nike. Kanye's LV shoe was mostly done by himself as he is hoping to 'intern' with the label and eventually release his own line.

so there you have it-you have a better chance of getting an internship at Bear Stearns this summer than Kanye west does at being a decent designer...hope that makes you feel a little bit better.

they don't actually look cool...but the idea is there

so we all remember legendary street wear brand stussy right? a few months back i wrote about how they basically invented the modern t-shirt image in like, '94.

Well they've decided to take their status as 'classic ballers of the fashion world' and combine it with another titan of keeping our skin safe from the elements-Doc Marten?:

the two brands have deep roots in underground cultures, stussy has been clothing skateboarders since the invention of the kickflip, and doc marten has been keeping the feet of punks,skins,and hardXcore kids safe for even longer.

That's why it's somewhat disappointing that the two enduring brands got together and all they could come up with is a boot that kind of looks like a knockoff Timbaland boot from China town...check these out:they just released those on their own...they're not even limited...

so dear stussy/dr marten, we all know you guys phoned that one in, I'll expect a better effort in the future.