crooked tongues magazine News Features

The adidas Spezial is part of adidas’s golden age, where shoes could be made for the most specific of sports, and still absolutely kill it in the design stakes. An elite-level indoor handball shoe shouldn’t be that good, but as mergers of innovation and absolute simplicity go, it’s one of the best shoes ever. The holes in the midsole? Ill. Proto technology stays winning. Being a Beckham and Bond release, the ObyO Spezial Mid gets a pretty ...

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adidas’s ObyO line seems to relish in mucking around with some existing tooling. That means some of your favourites are bound to get involved, and the anglophile streak that runs through the Beckham and Bond pieces means that some hearts are going to be broken. If you really love the ZX 800, seeing it stripped down, speckled and remade might cause some fanboys to fall to the ground clutching their chests. We were a little taken aback to see ...

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Nike’s Training releases have been crushing the competition lately on the design front. The Trainer SC 2010? The Trainer 1.2 Mid, and Low? The Zoom Huarache Trainer? All significant releases. The Trainer 1.2 Hyperfuse indicated that there were even more possibilities in the training range, using a technology that was created within the basketball division. Mixing some of the running styling of the new Air Max 2011 on the upper with the Free TR silhouette and a ...

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Jordan Brand’s been spoiling us lately - especially when it comes to the franchise’s thirteenth chapter. Flints were bananas — one of the best Jordan colourways ever, but it would be foolish to ignore this one too. In the UK, post chapter VI (with some stragglers keeping the faith up to VIII), the Jordan line seemed to be more of a cult line rather than a commonplace sneaker to envy. Rap fans, players and sneaker fanboys picked up on some ...

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This has always been an odd shoe for PUMA to tinker with. Truth be told, while we’re shoe weirdos, we’ve never known an awful lot about the R698 other than that it’s presumably a solution to the basketball-centric nature of the brand’s archives and a response to the need for an Air Max of ZX 800 style silhouette. We’ve also got a soft spot for Trinomic. As we recall, that appeared at the dawn of ...

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The 60th NBA All-Star Weekend was a good time to showcase some sneakers. It always is, but whether it was Ray Allen’s beautiful blue and silver looking Jordan 2011s, Dwight Howard’s Superbeasts, the mysterious “Carbon Fiber” Jordan XI, that blink and miss Yeezy 2 glimpse or Ron Artest’s launching his Ball’n release, it’s a superior jump off point for some non-retro footwear sightings. Anyone else think that Blake Griffin’s over-the-bonnet dunk in the Air ...

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To visit Japan, or any spot on the Far East is usually fun from a footwear-point-of-view, but it's always been the most rewarding from a New Balance perspective. While, naturally, we only used to see runners on these shores, the hiking element seemed to inform plenty that was on sale in spots like mita. We miss the 802 offroad design that had a brief trend-level explosion back when shitty late '90s non-entities would stumble into the Priory in Terra ...

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Dunks got played out. Things got too fancy - Footaction and SB brought the classics, but the definitive dual colour variations came from the far east. Before we Brits got our hands on official Dunk releases in 2002 (the Goldenrod Hi, followed by a glut of Pro Lo variations) we were fiending over the US reissues and the offering that our friends in Japan got waaaaaaay before we did. Bear in mind that this site was once pretty much fueled by ...

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Bored of New Balance 1500s yet? No? Good. Office favourite, forum favourite and an unofficial footwear pick of the Lo Lifes (which we attribute to a trinity of look, RRP and the 1989 release, right in the crew's light-fingered heyday), this shoe seems to look better to us as each year goes by. We were pleased to see our 2006 1500 makeup get some love in G-Roc's Complex top 50 (shouts to TSG) after all these years, and ...

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This is an odd one. Not least because word had it that it's some kind of Euro-only release despite the yankee-centric theme. The Reebok Pump Omni Lite was built for basketball, but this American football themed version gives it a New York Giants makeover, and the makeup actually works pretty well. Using this colourway to represent the east coast, the G Men's blue and white is always a good choice, but some might be driven back by the ...

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The New Balance 576 is one of our Platonic Ideals of how a sneaker should look. Its old bestselling late ‘90s running partner, the 572 is pretty much forgotten, but this one’s got plenty more mileage. In premium, plush leathers it’s a good shoe (witness the current Lake District pack for proof of that), but when it’s in suede, it comes into its own. This duo, set for release soon, pick up where last season’s red ...

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This shoe is that crack for the feet. We weren't of that opinion when we first saw pictures of them. We actually thought this level of modification was downright shitty after the more subtle nods to Red Wing and Timberland that capitalised on the Uptown's undisputed bulk. Shifting from those staples as an inspiration point to the Sorel Caribou seemed a little lame...that's the new point-of-reference and given our fandom for the Pointer Pluckrose, Visvim Decoys ...

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The New Balance 574 spent too many years as the frumpy sibling of the 576 and 577. It was a chunkier, less fussy alternative to the more expensive NB creations, but it always had some interesting applications thrown at it. Some of our favourite colourways from the brand have been 574s - burnt orange leather with a reflective 'N'? Amazing. The price point always made it particularly democratic too, but in recent years it seems to have had a push behind ...

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Our preoccupation (and we're including ourselves in this criticism) with past footwear glories has killed many a great contemporary design, destined to get dusted off in a decade for rediscovery, but left in the cold for now. It's a testament to '80s and '90s sneaker design that the majority have never been able to get past it, but pieces like the Nike5 Lunar Gato deserve some success, even if it's through re-appropriation beyond the 5-a-side, indoor football ...

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The New Balance 577 is one of the greats. From those glorious grey and blues to the leather Limited Edition variation Israeli army editions and our own 'Black Sword' take—which sounds like a top shelf title, but was actually a top draw Crooked creation back in 2006 (mmmm...mustard suede), it's a thing of beauty. The stealthy, premium shape and feel of the shoe has a heritage of real running and remains well regarded by those with a ...

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We’re reliably informed by skate store buddies that these things fly off the shelves.Haven’t got the desired colour? Kids are buying the closest alternative. That’s an indication of how successful this release is. We haven’t seen that level of madness for a Nike SB product since the Dunks were sailing off the shelves. The difference here is that Stefan’s model is selling and actually getting worn, rather than staying on ice for the purposes ...

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Unlikely retro—good results. That pretty much sums up the resurrection of the Nike Sky Force's 1988 incarnation. Sure, we know the power of the 1984 Sky Force—pre-empting the Dunk and Jordan I and a peer to the underrated Airship Hi—that had an okayish retro a couple of years back that barely caused a ripple, but this is an even stranger proposition. The budget-priced alternative to the expensive models like the legendary Air Force III cropping up ...

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This is a showcase of two things—good footwear and some very, very poor lacing on our part. Our handiwork on the fine chalk and blue adidas Campus 80s does a great shoe no favours, but these both deserve some shine right here. March is shaping up to be a vintage month for...ummm...vintage footwear, and the Campus gets some superior colourways as a result. These pigskin takes are set for March and the soft premium uppers complement the ...

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The Nike V-Series is a significant moment for running shoe design. We take today's slew of retrospective releases for granted, but this was a moment when runners were evolving at a staggering rate with some eye-watering pricing to match (the New Balance 1300 being a perfect example). A fitness boom and a desire for clean, innovative design led to the birth of this trio. The Vengeance left the starting block in 1984 targeted at competitive runners with an emphasis ...

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It's another late addition to the News, but it seems relevant for today, seeing as it's Chinese New Year. Just as we sussed when it was safe to cease with New Year's greetings, it's a Happy New Year all over again. For years, regardless of your country-of-origin, you knew that Chinese New Year meant excellent Nike Air Force 1s—Year of the Monkeys, Year of the Roosters and Year of the Horses are classics. We're ...

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Deconstructed Superstars should be a very bad thing. A very, very bad thing indeed. Somehow the Superstar Lite LTO works. We’re surprising ourselves with that sentiment—we’ve long been anti metal eyelet when it comes to our Shelltoes, and an excess of padding back in the early ‘00s had us despairing (remember when Footpatrol seemed to be the only place in the UK to grab a normal Superstar?). On the padding and bulk front, these take an opposite ...

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The Nike Kobe line has, by and large, been consistent and crowd pleasing. We loved some of the adidas releases for the big man, but they were more inconsistent (though Top Ten 2010s and KB8s are classic) culminating in the brave but monstrous KOBE, KOBETWO and the unreleased KOBE III. Those things were Satan's like moonboots. Nike have brought the ruckus time and time again, and after the crazed Kobe III, things settled to bring us the latest iteration ...

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2012

• May (14)
• April (22)
• March (18)
• February (20)
• January (27)

crooked tongues magazine News Features

adidas ObyO Spezial Mid DB

adidas ObyO ZX 800 DB

Nike Vapor TR Max

Jordan 13 'Playoffs'

PUMA x Classic Kicks R698s

Nike Basketball All-Star Colourways: UK Releases

New Balance H710SB

Nike Dunk Low Vintage QS "CO.JP"

More UK-made New Balance M1500s

New York Giants Reebok Pump Omni Lite

More New Balance 576s

Nike Air Force 1 Hi Duck Boot

UK-Made New Balance 574s

Nike5 Lunar Gato

Some New Balance 577s for Spring...

“Sport Red” Nike SB Zoom Stefan Janoski

Nike Sky Force '88 retro

adidas Campus 80s "Pigskin"

Nike Air V-Series reissues

Nike Air Force 1 Low "Year of the Rabbit"

adidas Superstar Lite LTO

Nike Zoom Kobe VI "The Black Mamba"

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