What up, family! The Kicks You Wear is back! Thanks so much for rocking with me on this glorious Monday.
Hopefully, you had a good weekend and a good Valentine’s day if you celebrate that sort of thing.
Alrighty. Let’s do it.
The Carmine 6 continues an alarming trend
(Photo by Project 290 on Unsplash)
The return of the Carmine 6 drop was one of the most heavily anticipated sneaker moments in 2021.
Why? Because this updated version of the shoe is a replica of the joints that dropped in 1991. It came with a Nike Air logo on the back instead of a jumpman.
People were pumped. They bum-rushed the Nike NYC store trying to get pairs — which, uh, not great. Especially in a pandemic. It was ridiculous.
Clownish behavior aside, this clearly shows how excited people were for the return of this joint. It’s just too bad a factory flaw put a damper put on this thing.
Nike recalled a bunch of pairs they were turning up with pink soles, according to Complex.
This became a whole mess — literally.
The pink discoloration was coming from dye transferring from the upper and leaking into the midsole.
The brand said a “small amount” of the Carmines didn’t meet their standards and they were working to rectify that with their retailers.
That meant a bunch of auditing and recalls, which reduced this initial drop from relatively plentiful to pretty scarce. It wasn’t a good look at all.
Here’s the deal. In a vacuum, this isn’t that concerning. Stuff happens. Drops have flaws sometimes.
But this isn’t in a vacuum. It’s continuing a concerning trend in Jordan releases that we’ve seen over the last few months. The quality of some of the products dropping seems to be declining.
In February, this Carmine fiasco happens. Back in November, some early launch pairs of the Fire Red 4’s were built differently between the left and right shoes — Weartesters documented it here. Both retailed at $200.
This is a problem. As a consumer, this isn’t what you want to see — especially as the cost of kicks continues to rise and the quality of counterfeit kicks is getting better and better.
This is something that needs to be nipped in the bud, ASAP.
Sustaining sustainability in sneakers
(Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash)
Sustainability continues to be a huge theme for the year — particularly with Nike. We saw images and have a release date for the Cosmic Unity.
Now the ReadyMade Blazer is on the way. The Blazers made from sustainable materials with a Travis Scott stamp to it finally has a release date. It’s dropping on February 27.
This upper is made from second-hand textiles with an outsole made from recycled material.
We just got official images and they look great. They also have thr Travis Scott stamp, which has everyone hyped.
But what I’m most interested in seeing is how this expands from here. Sustainability isn’t just a one-off thing or a franchise thing — it’s something that has to be initiated brand-wide. That’s what makes it real and not some sales gimmick. There needs to be more.
More might be coming. On the tongue of this shoe there’s “Nike RE” branding.
(Via Modern-Notoriety)
We don’t know what this means. But Nike is very intentional with its branding. And when they’re introducing a new line this space is where they generally do that at — for example, the “Nike SB” branding on the tongue of SB Dunks and Blazers.
RE could be a new Nike line for sustainable and recycled materials. Or? It could just be short for “Ready” or “Recycled.” And it could just apply to this shoe. I have no idea.
What I do know, though, is that we see this sort of thing can be spread into more and more GR’s. And I hope that this shoe is the thing that kicks that off.
We’ll see how it goes.
The Yeezy Dip
StockX shared some of the data insights that it’s recorded over the last four years since 2016 and there were some pretty interesting tidbits included.
The biggest things:
LeBron James’ hoop shoes represented 34 of the top 1,000 shoes sold on the site in 2016. Today, five years later, there are just 13.
Yeezy 350 sales — arguably the brand’s most popular model — are down by about 50%. But it’s still the second-highest selling silhouette behind the Jordan 1.
Women’s exclusive sneaker sales have increased times 1,500 on the platform from 2016 to 2020. This stat was staggering: “Every four hours, StockX sells the same number of women’s exclusive sneakers as it did in all of 2016.” Wow.
Those were the biggest takeaways, but they essentially confirmed stuff that we already knew.
Basketball shoes are being phased out, slowly but surely. Yeezy volume increase so prices dropped. But it’s still pretty popular. And brands are starting to finally recognize the female sneakerhead consumer base.
Though, on that point about women, I will say that dudes are still buying women’s models and reselling them at disgusting rates. Which, it goes without saying, is the absolute worse. Looking at you, Off-White Jordan 4.
SPECIAL DELIVERY IS BYKE
I know the streets been waiting on this. We took a quick break for the Super Bowl and let Tom Brady have his time, or whatever. Now we’re back.
And we’ve got Puma and J Cole in the building. Y’all are going to like this one.
And, yes, I did call myself #DadShoeDaddy. No, I’m not sorry.
What’s droppin, bruh
Nike Air Griffey Max 1 (!!!!!!) — Monday, February 15
Nike Air Max CB4 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) — Monday, Feburary 15
New Balance 574 “My Story Matters” — Monday, February 15
Nike Dunk Low “UNLV” — Thursday, February 18
Air Jordan 3 “Cool Grey” — Saturday, February 20
Thank you so much for rocking with me again! Appreciate your time! Have a great finish to your 3-day weekend.
Talk to you on Wednesday, fam!
Peace. Be safe. Be easy. Be kind. Peace and love.
Signing off.
—Sykes 💯
The quality issue is so wild because we're paying so much money to be disappointed. I bought some Royal 1 Mids (with the intention of painting them) and there are loose threads everywhere, split leather on the lace guards, scuffs, it's not well made. The number of glue stains and stuff has gone down but damn it's disappointing