The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 399 — A quiet galaxy 🌌

Why doesn't anyone care about the Galaxy Foam comeback?

Good morning, folks! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. Thanks so much for rocking with me today. Appreciate you.

First and foremost, I want to start by sending love to the families impacted by the Potomac plane crash from Wednesday night. That’s always devastating news, but it’s particularly weighing on me because of how close to home it is. I can’t imagine how those families must feel today. My heart goes out to them.

These were human beings: Learn more about the crash victims here. What a tragedy, man. I hate this so much.

Hard to talk about sneakers today with everything going on, but let’s give it a shot.

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The Galaxy Foamposite is coming

Photo by Shot by Cerqueira on Unsplash

And it just doesn’t feel like anyone cares.

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m just not tapped in enough. Maybe I’m imagining things. But the enthusiasm for this legendary sneaker doesn’t seem there.

What’s happening: The Galaxy Foamposite is returning officially on February 21st — a little bit less than a month from now.

We’ve hardly heard a peep about these.

• It’s not on the SNKRS app yet. It hasn’t been since it was included in the Spring 2025 preview Nike did.

• The tweets about it are pretty quiet. Granted, Twitter X isn’t really what it used to be. But still! You’d think people would be going nuts for a drop like this.

This is weird. This shoe is the epitome of a grail. The Galaxy Foamposite was a must-have when it was released in 2012. People rioted over these things. For people’s opinions to be so hit-or-miss on these can only be described as strange — at least on one hand.

On the other hand: The chilled reaction to these makes a bit more sense when you think about where we were back in 2012 and what was happening. Sneakers were heating up back then.

• We were moving out of a significant retro Jordan movement and into a new era headlined by creativity and color.

• The new era was headlined by creative SB Dunks, the Air Yeezys and new Nike basketball models. Specifically, the LeBron, KD and Kobe lines were on fire.

• The NBA All-Star Galaxy pack was born from that fire. That’s where the Galaxy Foamposite comes from.

It was one of the few sneakers that captured the entire zeitgeist. Older sneakerheads wanted them. The new school wanted them, too. They were just perfect for that era. It was a unique set of circumstances for a unique sneaker.

Be smart: Those circumstances don’t exist today. The upcoming Galaxy Foam retro strictly rides on the coattails of the original model. It’s not new or fresh like it was back then.

It’s also not necessarily the season for a shoe like that one to return. We’re still stuck on Y2K-era runners, clogs and other weird stuff.

These Foamposites will capture the older sneakerheads who were the young sneakerheads back in 2012. For the young sneakerheads of 2025? I’m not quite sure they’re that into these.

Why would they be? They don’t fit today’s style. They don’t have a good narrative. It’s basically, “My dad stood in line for these for a long time.” If there’s anything we’ve learned about the up-and-coming sneakerheads of the day, they don’t care what we were doing yesterday.

The big picture: Don’t get things twisted. The Galaxy Foamposite is a great shoe. It will have a market. It’ll likely sell out immediately upon release.

But they certainly won’t recapture the hype from the moment we lived through 13 years ago (!!!!). And, if they can’t do that, then I kind of wonder what the point is in bringing them back in the first place.

Sometimes, keeping the vault locked is a good thing.

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Nike’s 40-year marketing scheme

I’ve got to give it to Nike. The brand is going deep in its bag to market the High 85 Bred Air Jordan 1 coming out next month.

The backstory: You know the story. Or…maybe you don’t? If not, don’t worry about it. It’s been intentionally obfuscated over the years by Nike and Jordan Brand to make the story way cooler than it actually is.

It goes like this:

• Michael Jordan signed with Nike in 1984. When he signed, the Jordan 1 wasn’t ready to be worn on court — but there was a shoe similar to it that he could wear in the meantime. That was the Air Ship.

• The only problem was that the Ship was black and red. The NBA’s uniformity of uniform rules required player’s shoes to be at least 51 percent white.

• The NBA warned Nike about the shoes, but they were never banned. There isn’t even evidence that Jordan was fined $5,000 every time he wore them, as Nike loves to tell us.

It’s all a lie Nike created to sell the Bred Air Jordan 1. The company has brilliantly let it spread like wildfire for the last four decades. You open four different websites writing about the shoe and you’ll find four variations of a story that never actually happened.

Fast forward to today and Nike is still capitalizing on the whole Banned storyline. They’re having fun with it!

The brand is (jokingly) fining employees at HQ for showing up to work in Jordans.

sayitwityakickz

A post shared by @sayitwityakickz

Jordan 1s are also banned on Nike’s online marketplace.

Be smart: This is why I always tell people that Nike is as good a marketing company as it is a footwear company. You want to talk about long-tail marketing? This is what that looks like.

They’re using a story about rebellion and scarcity to sell a limited product that is 40 years old at this point. And it still works! People still get excited about these shoes. It’s incredible.

This just goes to show you the power of storytelling when it comes to sneakers.

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VF Corp’s plan is working

We last talked about VF Corp six months ago in July. The company sold Supreme to EssilorLuxottica (sorry, still sounds like a Star Trek character) for $1.5 billion.

The why: VF Corp’s Supreme sale was one step of a larger plan to clear out $4 billion of over $6 billion in debt.

If the company’s latest earnings report indicates, that plan is going smoothly.

• The company’s net debt is down to $4.7 billion, down by about $2 billion yearly. $1 billion of the proceeds from the Supreme sale were used to cut that down.

• There were also some big sales wins. Timberland’s sales jumped by 11 percent year over year. The North Face’s jumped by five percent, too. That’s big.

• The other side: Vans is still struggling a bit. The brand had a 9 percent dip in sales. That’s better than last year’s 11 percent dip, but it’s still not good.

The big picture: VF Corp’s “Project Reinvent” introduced in 2023 (another rebrand for layoffs) seems to be working. CEO Bracken Darrell is confident. “The pace of VF’s transformation is on track as we deliver against our reinvent priorities,” he said.

Things are unquestionably better for VF Corp. The dark cloud hanging over its head is still there, but at least the rain has slowed. At the very least, it’s just a moderate drizzle instead of a downpour. That’s good.

But if VF is to be its best, Vans needs to get back on track. Then, maybe people will stop losing their jobs.

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We’ve officially jumped the loafer

We talked about how designs are becoming increasingly bizarre as consumers become more willing to try new things.

There are times when things can go a lil too far. This is one of those times.

Hoka is releasing a Speedgoat Loafer, which is precisely what it sounds like — a shoe with a loafer upper and a trail-runner midsole. 

A look: This is a monstrosity that mankind should never have been introduced to.

This shoe looks like a damn dinosaur. What are we doing here, Hoka? I get wanting to be weird, but this weird? Come on, y’all. This shoe looks like you’ve got a morning hike scheduled for 8 tomorrow morning, but also, you’ve got brunch at 10. Ridiculous.

The big picture: We’ll see many projects like this over the next few years. The Alt-Shoe is here to stay. There are going to be successes, like New Balance’s 1906L.

We’ll also see…this. Yikes.

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#TheKicksWeWear

LET’S GET IT!!!

Speaking of Jordans, the homie DSJ popped us off here with the Mochas. Love these joints.

The homie Storm went CRAZY with the New Balance this week. MAN. Look at these joints.

Then the homie Jalen came through with the Jae Tips “To Do List” joints, man. Lve these shoes, dog.

The homie JP popped out in the Columbia Blues. These joints are SO clean, dog. Wow.

Then the homie Patrick took us home with an AMAZING lace swap on the Poppy Seed Wizard of Oz joints. I gotta get these now, man.

SMOKED that, gang. Y’all are really like that.

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That’s a wrap, friends. Thanks so much for reading KYW this week. I appreciate your time. Have a fantastic weekend.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns hit me via email at mikedsykes@gmail.com or shoot me a message here on Substack.

Peace and love. Be safe, be easy, be kind. We out.

-Sykes 💯