Good morning, fam! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear! Hope you all are well and have had a fantastic week.
Thanks for reading the Deep Dive! The response from everyone is really encouraging — you all seemed to be into it, which I’m really excited about. In fact, y’all seem to want more! You can leave more feedback here in KYW’s latest reader survey.
Alright, fam. Let’s jump in.
Let me Upgrade you
(Photo by Max Letek on Unsplash)
Last Friday Adidas and Ivy Park dropped their third (!!!!) collection together in a year. This time for Ivy Park’s Winter collection.
This one felt stale to me, though. Especially as far as footwear is concerned. And, if what’s left of the collection is any indication, it seems many others felt the same way.
Every silhouette is still pretty much widely available outside of the Super Sleek boot that dropped.
Contrast that with the gear that it came with, and much of that is gone. Sizes left are few and far between.
That makes sense. Ivy Park was always an athleisure collaboration first. With each collection, there’s a new flavor of jumpsuit or a new hoodie, or a new workout set.
But that doesn’t mean the footwear shouldn’t evolve in any way. So far it hasn’t. Every drop has featured the Ultraboost or distinct colorway of the Super Sleek 72. We’ve gotten the Night Jogger twice and the Forum twice now.
The only “new” thing we got was a boot variation of the Super Sleek.
That shouldn’t be. There needs to be something new here. Something fresh. The big one is obvious — Beyoncé needs her own signature shoe. I argued that on this platform a year ago.
Kanye is Kanye. Pharrell drops new Hu models every year. Even Jonah Hill got to put his own touch on the Samba. What’s happened with Beyoncé over the last year feels like a missed opportunity.
And don’t get it twisted. Ivy Park is good. The clothes are quality. The sneakers are solid. The function is all there. It’s just gotten sort of…boring.
And maybe designing sneakers isn’t Beyoncé’s thing. Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that Adidas doesn’t want to do that. They’re unsure that Bey would be able to actually sell a signature shoe (for whatever reason). That might be valid! Selling a shoe is hard.
That doesn’t stop them from switching it up. Why not use this opportunity to give a GR trail runner some Ivy Park love? Why not feature a different OG model? Where’s the Ivy Park ZX joint?
That’s the kind of creativity this calls for and that’s what people want to see. Just give us something new. Hopefully, we get it for the next drop.
New Balance hit a home run
(Photo by Tomas Eidsvold on Unsplash)
We finally have another baseball star getting a signature shoe and it’s definitely not one that anyone expected.
The Mets’ Francisco Lindor is dropping the Lindor 1 with — wait for it — NEW BALANCE. That was definitely not the brand I expected to see diving into baseball, but here we are. You can take a peek at them along with this excellent Lindor interview from Sole Collector here.
This joint caught me off guard for a few reasons.
New Balance is notoriously stingy with endorsement deals.
Even when athletes get a deal from NB, they’ve rarely given out signature shoes. It’s just Lindor and Kawhi Leonard with signature kicks with the brand.
And on top of all that, it’s baseball! Signature athletes here are few and far between.
It also feels really smart, despite being so surprising. Baseball is an area that is ripe for a takeover. Until now, Mike Trout and Bryce Harper are the only MLB players with signature kicks. Lindor changes that.
Lindor is perfect. He’s got personality. He’s flashy. And on top of that? He’s good. Really good. He’s the blueprint that shows other baseball stars (looking at you, Fernando Tatis Jr.) what is possible and shows MLB what this could look like.
His shoes could look a lot better, but hopefully, they’ll get there with time.
So, sure, this is a bit out of the blue. But the timing couldn’t be better. Keep an eye on this. It might be the start of something.
Introducing the AJ1 “What the Doernbecher
Thursday night was the official reveal of the mystery Doernbecher shoe that we’ve been waiting on for weeks now.
Turns out, it was a Jordan 1 (of course). But what was really cool about it is that they did it “What the” style. Not from other AJ1 models, but from the Doernbecher models of years past.
It made for an incredible look. Here’s the genealogy.
This is just one of 17 pairs in existence. Want these? The bidding hit A MILLION dollars Thursday night. It’s open til Saturday if you got that bread.
The sneaker world could learn from NBA Top Shot
The last week for NBA Top Shot has been a mess. They’ve got mad people online now and on top of that, they’re getting botted.
So to fix it they just stopped everything.
Respectfully, this is a damn mess. But it’s a mess I can appreciate! At least they didn’t let us participate in a broken raffle or ask us to send e-mails instead or b…You know what? Nevermind.
Good luck copping packs today, y’all.
A quick word from our sponsor, ANOTHER LANE
Founded by Chad "Sneaker Galactus" Jones and Adena Jones, Another Lane features a sneaker community chock full of the most dedicated collectors and some of the rarest kicks in the world.
Today, we’re featuring one of those rare kicks! They came with the Eminem AJ4 on tap from Simon Tan aka Depeche23Mode.
Y’all. This is a big one.
Only 23 pairs of this thing were made. Period. And one of them went to Michael Jordan, himself. Another pair went to charity, and the rest were given to family and friends.
You can find more rare joints like this on ANOTHER LANE. You can legitimately go treasure hunting. Do yourself a favor and sign up today to discover more rare kicks like this one.
#TheKicksWeWear
Ahem…LET’S GET RIGHT TO IT. TKWW COMING AT YOU.
The homie Baklava Boi kicked us off with the COURT PURPLES. Fam.
Then the Better Mike came through in the BHM AJ2’s. These joints are SICK.
The homie Ant popped out in the Flint 7’s. Look how clean these joints are.
Then the homie T popped out in the Wave Runners. But you know moms had the real heat on.
The homie Pam popped out in the Waffle Racers and, man, these joints are too crisp.
The homie Greer popped out in the Golden Bullet 97’s. Fan faves, of course.
The homie Josh channeled the Special Delivery vibes with the Asics x END Pearl Gel-Lyte III. So good. Also, WATCH SPECIAL DELIVERY Y’ALL.
Big shouts to the birthday boy, Sumeet, who brought out the HEAT with the AM90’s. Also, shouts to Yosh who copped them for my guy. Also, shouts to the whole Kicks fam. Gang gang.
Then the homie Phil — and his entire FAMILY — sent us home with AJ1 heaters. GOALS.
SMOKED THAT.
Thank y’all so much for rocking with me today! Have an amazing weekend. Make sure you take a sec to get through the reader survey!
Til next time, family. Peace. Be safe. Be easy. Be kind. Peace and love.
Signing off.
—Sykes 💯
If this is the year of the ZX at adidas how do they miss a Bey collab??? What a huge missed opportunity. Kanye’s shoes are a big seller but as for “brands” Bey has to be the biggest name three stripes has to work with.