crooked tongues magazine News Features

Once upon a time, we wrote Pointer off as a brand that did one thing very well (the Debaser style, with its Pixies reference pleasantly at odds with the simple looks), but over time we're glad we've been proved wrong. Since talking to the brand's head honcho, Gareth, we've bonded over sweatshirt, skate and Bad Brains related chat and that had us looking at the brand in a whole different light. After all, it's nice ...

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People tend to get bogged (or is that blogged?) down in brand loyalties these days, and that — twinned with a lack of imagination — is a key cause of footwear dullness these days. Blind yourself by putting on the blinkers and you facilitate in the escalating blandness. We never thought Le Coq Sportif would ever put out a new shoe that caught our attention again. The brand, like Diadora or Brooks, was a credible contender on school playgrounds back when the ...

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This shoe is awesome, but it doesn't come cheap. When the Nike Kobe VII first dropped in that crazy System Supreme package we were impressed, but we soon realised that we couldn't be bothered with interchangeable elements and unnecessary fuss - we just want to throw a pair of shoes on and get on with our lives. Plus, we like the point of difference between Nike's two stars — Kobe likes low and LeBron likes it high. The Elite ...

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There's new Air Max 1s every month, but what passes for a good makeup these days? We say it's anything that isn't some murky stab at mass appeal. These things fly out the store - on certain colourways, we find it hard to maintain stock. Thanks to the near-biblical amounts of rain (is the big man trying to purge the planet as punishment for our retro-loving ways?), we're in ACG at the moment until the inclement conditions ...

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More evidence that somebody's not letting the Nike Air Max 90 stagnate like it might have done in some recent seasons is present here. Recently in the office we were discussing what notions of outlandish on trainers once were — is it us or do oddities like the Daktari Dunk look pretty run-of-the-mill compared to what came next? Now nobody bats an eyelid when Air Max 1s drop in lurid Liberty paisleys, and rightly so - the whole shoe thing has ...

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Stüssy aren't new to footwear collaborations. Looking at the racks and marvelling at their Nike Huarache, it's crazy to think that they've been doing it for well over a decade and over the last couple of years their drive for dual label projects has been astonishing — there's pretty much a new Stussy drop every week and it's tough to maintain that momentum on collabs, because what was uncharted territory in 2000 is now standard issue ...

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The Nike Bruin is a shoe with an enviable sub-cultural heritage. Oh, did we just use the 'h'-word? Sorry about that. But this is a release that dates back to the 1972 era when the majority of Nike's attention was on track and field and one that swiftly amassed attention in suede and leather. Ostensibly a Cortez for the court, the simplicity of this low-cut basketball offering made it a shoe with versatility and a strong companion for ...

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Despite being a shoe that can pretty much take to any pattern there is, the Chuck Taylor is one of the hardest shoes to make over. What can you do with them? Stripes off? Done before. Premium materials? Done hundreds of times before. Plus you can't get close to matching the perfection of the black canvas Chuck Taylor Hi. Admittedly, that's a visual perfection rather than perfection in terms of fit, because that shoe has a tendency to ...

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If you've followed this site from its humble beginnings, you'll know that we're faintly obsessed with the Hiroshi, Tinker and Mark trinity of creativity and the special makeups of new and old favourites they've generated over the last decade. Nike's HTM initiative isn't a project set in stone, but when it appears, it's worth paying attention. The HTM Run Boot (with an extra Mark involved) was progressive pieces that preempted a fixation with ...

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Around this time in 2008, we scratched our heads at the amount of light brown New Balance boxes we'd stacked up. It wasn't like the contents were particularly outlandish either - plenty of 1500s, 576s and 1300s, but people just didn't seem interested. Eventually we shifted them, but if we'd known, we would have put them on ice in the corner of the warehouse and broken them out as "deadstock" in 2012. A lot changed in four ...

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At the first sign of feverish interest, the majority of brands throw as many colours and concepts at a shoe as they can in order to capitalise. More often than not, they miss the point. A few years back, New Balance US clocked some UK, US and Japanese collector hype and created some beautifully packaged SMUs of classics like the 1400 and almost good but too garish 998s. Like some kind of contemporary Aesop's Fable, we liked NB for ...

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Beyond the more high profile anniversary Air Force 1s for Nike's celebration of the Uptown's 30th birthday, there's some classy inline variations dropping this summer too. Teal's long been an office favourite on AF1s — remember the high versions from 1991 with the Indian Teal accents? Those things were crack. This makeup of the low isn't going to set Tumblr, Pinterest or Instagram aflame at the moment, but on the feet, these are a pretty perfect ...

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After the Foamposite hype, we thought we'd take a look at a much older shoe that represents the true meaning of hype. And for the skim readers, THESE ARE FROM 2003 AND THEY'RE NOT COMING OUT AGAIN AND WE'RE NOT SELLING THEM. You need to hit up eBay for these, son. We thought we'd just take a second from plugging what's in the store to take a close look at a shoe we've long ...

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We haven't seen as many Air Max 97s on the streets since we saw a bunch of Italians (the lovers of a shiny sneaker and denizens of a country that loved the 97 but seems to have gone adidas lately) wandering outside NikeTown in 2007 with their new 10th anniversary purchases on their feet, and before that, the days of Evisu, yellow-tinted glasses and Photek. The reason? The Vac Tech edition of this classic seemed to fire a lot ...

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One of the most unexpected retros or hybrids of the year joins the Huarache Free this May with more colourways. We're still perplexed by the Kukini Free (we won't go into how essential the original sole was to the upper again), but there's no denying that everything looks better in a stark dual-tone black and white makeover like this. Free in these colours is a killer and these Nike Sportswear Kukini Frees continue that lineage. We can ...

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This is the third time we've covered the Nike Huarache Free on here, and we're bored of pouring mild criticism on this shoe for not being a standard Huarache. We'd prefer it if this shoe wasn't a slightly awkward flexible remix, but it isn't, so we need to get over it. Plus we know that there's normal Huarache reissues on the way at some point. The Royal Blue/Scream Green colourway from back in ...

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We've babbled about the brilliance of the Air Flight 89 (the shoe formerly known as the Air Flight Low) here recently, but this is too good a release to pass up. This is the model that had us losing our minds on its release and it's still one of the ten greatest basketball shoes of all time. Some shoes get bolstered by the passage of time, with the fact they're "retro" being their selling point, even if ...

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We haven't covered a LeBron in a minute, but after a slow start on the original Heat-themed and trademark Mr. James colourways, the Nike LeBron 9 seems to have found its mojo. It's usually the same pattern — the NikeTalk negativity in comparison to the last chapter after a leaked sample shot, a slow start, then some fresh colourways that set the hype off. Now the LeBron 9 is big business. Just as part 8 evolved throughout the season ...

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We're used to collaborations with the usual suspects, but every now and again a partnership crops up that catches us offguard. China's the place (incidentally, we excised a plaice pun there) to build your brand at the moment and for the foreseeable future, with plenty of cash and a growing audience for sports footwear, and while we hadn't heard much about Beijing's Begins store before, this collaboration is an interesting introduction for us. The best dual-label ...

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There's always room for something a little more eccentric on this site and we don't think we cover enough adidas performance pieces here. This right here is one of the most interesting warm weather developments from the brand in a long time and the adidasClimaCool Boat Lace feels like an evolution of some of our favourites, from Nike's Pocketknife to Reebok's Travel Trainer — this is a stupendously light, breathable design that's made to be worn ...

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The Nike Air Max 1 is ubiquitous in any European city. If you aren't already programmed to look from the feet upwards at passers' by, have a look. The shoe is everywhere. And we won't lie — when we saw those weird ACG editions that made no damned sense in late 2010, we assumed the shoe had peaked with Patta and Parra and was in the same freefall that the Dunk was in, and is — until the Supreme SB ...

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The Nike Air Force 1's 30th birthday celebrations continue, and once again, we're impressed. We haven't seen too much overkill (other than the insane RRP on that anniversary Hi) and we're a quarter of the way through the year. We expected a deluge of Uptowns, but Nike are being smarter about it this year. While the majority fill out when they join the thirtysomething brigade, the AF1 has done the opposite and lost some weight. And ...

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2013

• June (12)
• May (24)
• April (24)
• March (26)
• February (27)
• January (28)

crooked tongues magazine News Features

Pointer Mathieson Trek

Le Coq Sportif Joakim Noah 3.0 "Le Rêve Olympique"

Nike Kobe VII Elite Black/Gold "Away"

Nike Sportswear Air Max 1 Melon Crush/Hot Punch

Nike Sportswear Max 90 "Stripes"

Converse x Stüssy Elm & Sea Star

Nike Sportswear Perforated Bruin VNTG

Converse Chuck Taylor All Star Low Premium Ox

Nike HTM Flyknit Drop 2 & Video

New Balance 1300DG

New Balance M998OG Made in the USA

Nike Air Force 1 Low Lush Teal/White

Nike 'Apartment' Berlin Vandal Hyperstrike (2003)

Nike Sportswear Air Max 97 CSV Black/White

Nike Sportswear Kukini Free 'USATF'

Nike Sportswear Huarache Free Royal Blue/Scream Green

Nike Sportswear Air Flight 89 White/Royal Blue/Red

Nike LeBron 9 Mango

New Balance & Begins 574 Sonic

adidas ClimaCool Boat Lace

Nike Sportswear Air Max 1 Black/Sail/Hazelnut

Nike Air Force 1 Deconstructed Suedes

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