crooked tongues magazine News Features

After clocking these in the Nike showroom last year, our next exposure was through one of those strange YouTube videos where someone gets an early pair in the unlabeled box and then tries to fill four minutes talking about them. We salute those dudes, because we have issues trying to shoehorn information into paragraphs, let alone flash video. But the Spiz'ike gives you a hell of a lot to talk about. You could talk about the mix of III, IV and VI, or the colourway cues and all - in fact we know a fair few people who could probably dedicate video the length of Ken Burns's 'JAZZ' to tell you how much they loathe this model, welding together all their favourites in a big blob of classic Hatfield design. We used to be on the fence until we saw New Yawkers pulling this shoe off in spectacular fashion, and on a visit to the P-Town Nike employee store in late '07 on the day the cement makeup hit, and we witnessed some mild pandemonium. That was refreshing to see, and it was the closest we've seen to getting the cement IV retroed again, regardless of recent rumours. That was the point when we decided this shoe wasn't the antichrist and was actually pretty wearable. The subsequent wave of hybrids like that Air Tech Challenge mashup seemed less well thought-out. Even the Winter Boot was sick.

If you wanted the actual IV in this makeup, stop crying - you had your chance in '08, even though you were obliged to take some XIXs too. It'd be nice to get the option to pick that up on its own without the doublepack obligation, but it's an all-time great Nike colourway. As with the VI retro with the varsity red, for some reason, durabuck's been kiboshed again here in favour of suede. We're not used to materials getting better on shoes - it's a reverse of the usual build quality devolution that retros seem to carry. And how can we be puritanical when we're talking about a shoe that looks this crazy? We're also pleased that something bearing Spike's name is actually good at the moment, because 'Miracle at St. Anna' let us down, and 'Kobe Doin' Work' lacked 'Zidane's magnetic intensity, and that haunting Mogwai score. The best Spiz'ike to date, and they're on sale here <a href= 'http://www.crookedtongues.com/store/new-arrivals/'>in the store</a> now...