crooked tongues magazine News Features

Beckham's reinterpretation of the Laver? What can we expect? Diamonique? Golden contrast stitching? Ummm...none of the former bad taste applications. In fact, caffeinated Friday afternoon good spirits aside, we'd actually go as far as saying that this is the best Rod Laver makeup beyond the original brace of makeups back in the day we've seen to date. And best of all? it uses the Rod Laver Super shape rather than the vintage version (which is admittedly a little more "on trend" in the current mood for all things spartan and simple) - the chunkier Laver is the one we grew up with, hobbled in, admired the light weight despite the width and dirtied up in a matter of hours. It's one of the greatest updates of any model ever, and a top 5 adidas shoe if we had to compile an all-time greats list. You might have gathered that we really like this shoe.

The barely branded, suede-toed DB version isn't even that much of a step from a colourway that already existed. It just hones the classic formula. On a recent visit to a US adidas outlet, the green and white Rod Laver in this shape was all that was on our mind - despite being plentiful on these shores circa 2002, when Foot Locker was stacked with leather and canvas versions, they seemed to dry up over here as soon as the slimmer version was re released. Co-designer James Bond is evidently a Laver-head, with two UNDFTD versions already beneath his belt, but this trumps them both, and the Mini Milk white translucent sole unit is the icing on the cake. That application added some ballast to this design, but we most certainly aren't mad. The best Originals By Originals release to date? Quite possibly. The ruler's back. And no freebies changed hands in exchange for this hyberbolic praise either. These are available in the <a href= 'http://www.crookedtongues.com/store/new-arrivals/'>in the Crooked store</a> now...