crooked tongues magazine News Features

Sometimes there's a shoe release that divides the office and the Nike Sportswear Huarache Free has been that model. Some like it at face value — younger staffers who aren't mired in history like the colours and grooved soles. Then there's those of us who — as with the Kukini Free — feel that the original sole unit is 50% of the shoe's appeal. We love Huaraches for being the progressive street shoe of choice for multiple generations, whether it's the old timers who caught it and pinrolled the first time around, younger brothers who envied then grabbed them in the early '00's when they got retroed (funny to think that those sale shelves at Foot Locker, laden with Force 180s, Huaraches and Spiridons in early 2005 during friends and family voucher weekends were something we took for granted) and a new wave of running shoe fan that's prone to exposing their ankles. The latter isn't preoccupied with historical accuracy, as the speed our stock of the Quickstrike original colourways flew out testifies.

Maybe we're just embittered fogies. Actually, there's no maybe about it, but sometimes tinkering with what Tinker created is like adding a pair of neon Frogskins to the Mona Lisa, but who are we to stand in the way of revisionist history? These new colours for the Huarache Free and Huarache Free BBall 2012 are excellent. Wolf Grey and that shade of green on the hi-top, with its mesh toebox is good, but that off white and light blue runner and the black, turquoise and magenta are clear winners. We can't find much to criticise in those palettes, but if they'd been real-deal Huaraches, it would have been game over. There must be a vast stack of Free soles sitting around awaiting application to other stretchy models we're fond of, but thankfully the impending Current reissue comes complete with its original soles. We're just old souls who like old soles, but we have to concede that we've seen people pull off the Huarache Free over the last couple of months, though they weren't folks in the over thirties category. These go on sale in April and they're available to pre-order in the Crooked Tongues store now...