Pro-Keds Bobbito Royal Flash

It's odd that it took this long for a project like this to surface. There's no substitute for a basketball shoe Jedi like Bobbito when it comes to reworking a classic - the man just overstands what made sneakers popular in the first place; a no-fuss approach to grabbing attention. Right now, your average kid on the street isn't flipping out over a coloured suede variant of shoe, but back when you needed to play well with a sponsor sugar daddy to match, travel far afield to the most distant sports shops or just hustle to cop some rareness, simplicity resonated harder.

After Bobbito kindly gave that same industry a handbook on how to make a decent shoe (and they still managed to drop the ball) in the shape of 2003's 'Where'd You Get Those?' PRO-Keds was given the same reverence as more ubiquitous brands, this could have been a glorious tie-in for that tome's launch. That's probably a good thing - this could have fallen through the gaps in a world without blog elevation to little more than a quaint throwback, and it's safe to say that Keds weren't fully equipped to deal with a project like this back then.

Now, PRO-Keds seems well equipped for the current climate rather than doddering around like a pensioner dazzled by the movement that surrounds them. We put that down to a calculated archive rollout, and a good choice of personnel for special projects. We can't even front and pretend that the Royal Flash was our thing growing up. That would be perpetrating. Bobbito's enthusiasm, and anecdotes surrounding the desirability of this model were infectious, and reinforced the importance of this model among NYC's then cash-strapped tastemakers, like Bob and his man Ted "Nitro" Lake. It's hard to fathom a period when a coloured outsole was something so striking, it generated a nickname, in this case, 'The Add-On,' reproduced on the heel of this makeup. In Harlem circa. 1979, that kind of thing could fire an imagination.

Whether this model is to your taste in its standard form, this initial 30th anniversary makeup's matter of fact lettering on the tongue and collar is fuss-free, and fairly eccentric - with the makeup mastermind's wariness of ruinous meddling, it's discreet too, but the killer here is the pick of suedes. Mustard will always catch our eye as part of a group, as it did on the Footpatrol Campuses, but the red wine allure of burgundy is strong too - orange and army jacket green are no slouch either.