bootleg sneakers, reality, unreality, etc. in GQ
There’s a Wade Allison memorial T-shirt for sale whose money goes to the family and to an Austin mental health charity for musicians. Consider buying it.
https://wadememorialshirt.bigcartel.com/product/wade-allison-memorial-fund-shirt
New piece in GQ about a strange going-on in the footwear world:
https://www.gq.com/story/nike-dunk-pigeon-knockoff
https://www.gq.com/story/nike-dunk-pigeon-knockoff
Story is about a guy who took online orders for a Pigeon Nike Dunk reproduction he changed the swoosh on, in collaboration with the guy who colored the original 2005 Pigeon Nike (both are designers), and Nike suing the first guy because the shoe is confusing. Sort of F for Fake and The Recognitions meets The Caine Mutiny with sneakers. I touched on it in the story briefly but for a while there all these hazily documented companies were producing fly-by-night cash grab bootleg Nike Jordan 1s that kept the silhouette and colors and changed the rest. There are these Pro-Fleets:
Which I have not seen outside this Instagram photo I saved half a decade ago. Pro-Fleets made fake Asics too. There are Air Sangs:
With the arrow swoosh. I think Lil Yachty has a pair; there is a long YouTube video about them. There are Honors Sports which made Fake 1s and these fake Air Revolutions, I think they made them too.
Honors Sport have a forked upturned swoosh, Pro-Joggs have a single one. Pro-Joggs are cool because they made licensed sneakers, K Mart-type shoes with a college or branch of government’s name on the side in addition to their fake 1s, which they produced in both Chicago colorways and in childrens and infant sizes. eBay alerts for Pro-Joggs mostly expose Auburn and Alabama sneakers.
In mostly kids sizes. Once every couple years you find something worth going after. I wonder if Senator-elect and former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville (R-ALA) has a pair. I wonder. There are Stacy Adams fake Jordan 1s:
Which I have seen once, on eBay, from where this screenshot is taken, a few years ago. They were size 13 so I didn’t buy them. They are probably the craziest of all the fake Jordans. The roller skate Air Jordan 1:
Speaks for itself. On a different plane of real and fake. In the alternate universe where there’s a Welles movie about these sneakers, Charlton Heston’s character gets lanced by an arrow and no one’s jaw drops during the tracking shot. I don’t like … directly writing about myself/inserting myself into stories that aren’t about me to begin with (also one every other year, tops) but I should mention I have three pairs of fake Jordans:
December 23, 2019
Which I bought over the past few years through saved searches and digging around. The Kestrls I have never seen before. Until recently I liked the … non-Jordans better than Air Jordans. For me. They look different (which is important) but not too different (about as important), and are well-made and well… I don’t know, why do people buy things? I needed these so I bought them. It’s not a cerebral decision. I sold or lost or gave away all my real Air Jordans before I bought these. For a while I only owned Jordan 1s, two 2001 pairs and four 1985s; I sold them to two business-like people from Bay Ridge before I started the newsletter. Before that I had a pair of Jordan II lows from 1994 that crumbled when I wore them to go to the other room to watch television, and I had a pair of Jordan VIs in the Infrared which I bought in 2006 and returned the next day since the paint on the heel looked fake. The black and red 2001s I bought myself as a present for graduating college with a night’s worth of Yankees Suck money, and in school I bought 1994 IIIs in too big a size that I threw away. I had a pair of all-white Jordan V retros from, I don’t know, late 90s, that I bought over a decade ago and whose outsoles had yellowed to darker than hospital piss and the shoe was so two-toned it looked like a spat and I sold or lost or threw them away in a move and I regret having done that. An in some ways broader and more substantive look at sneaker design, its legalities, the definition of fakery, designer shoes, etc. is contained in my GQ story.
Above from Gil Sayfan’s And Still Above All Fanzine, 2017? Always happy to write for fanzines. Thanks for reading.
Snake
Further work: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-JLRt0Ec6gZBm50hATYCYmLctnF9GhVijoEbam50JSw/edit
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