A long long time ago, before I participated in a little thing called the morning commute, before the rat race, wool pants, my iron, lunch in bags, and bags under my eyes was a little thing I like to call the early mid 00’s. Back then things were a little tiny bit different. People that weren’t hot girls thought Pharell was cool, no one knew how to dress or listen to music, and no one was on the internet. These shoes were also pretty big.. the SB Paris was a Dunk released concurrently in one city, with others in other metropoli (Tokyo’s - legitimately chill, NY the wackest yet, London, Karachi, etc). Each had a theme, this one’s theme was oils by Chagall, or scarves. Each Paris Dunk’s toebox was different and if placed end to (on) end they would form a sort of Voltron super Guernica e8, sonning everyone who dared walk into your loft.

Somehow though, everything about this shoe has materialised itself into the current era. People think they wear sneakers. They don’t; they wear Dunks. Half the skinny, skinny people who were wearing Dunks two years ago are now rocking $200 prospector Henleys diaper jeans and Gene Wilder dancing boots. They do this while listening to David Bowie, Joy D, etc. I guess this is why they have rattails and why I am not confused.

But I will bet you two slices of Chacho’s pie that the fall 2010 issue of Arena + Homme magazine will have a longer article about custom Dunks than it did this season or next season or two seasons ago etc. The Paris Dunk is the perfect epitome of this. It is limited, it is expensive, it is haute pretension, but it is still corny as hell. Anyone who rocks these and passes me by I promise you I will turn my head to make you feel better and believe me, I’ll mean it. But only Travis Barker would wear these with a suit or out for coffee. I might have said earlier that everyone’s a head.. but if you look around for even a minute you’ll see this isn’t the case. Whatever though its all gravey .. I wore C-Corns to the gym and they smell like a dog washing a dog. Its all good.. this shoe is not as cool as the Tokyo Dunk, but a lot flyer. Still a good buy.

click the link and peep the heatness:

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The original Prestos, in 1999, or 2000, or so, were something else and a bag of chips. They came out in 16 stupidly named colorways (trouble at home, the hungry fisherman, chips and dip, stephen murphy) and had a serious, serious ad campaign. I dont know if anyone reading this is old enough to remember it (whatup usercd) but these ads were everywhere, men in sleeveless water wicking hooded sweatshirts jumping up and down white marble buildings, for girls, or away from beasts, under the hot sun. The ads were pretty mondrian (not mondrian, someone help me out here.. very basic color scheme, but not monochrome.. triochrome? trizome?), all clay and blue and white. Men with 3-extension buzzcuts and one day growth wore no watches or socks and there was not much in the streets, people or carts or sidewalks. As for the shoes themselves they were complicated, sleek and antisensical. Why such a vulnerable toebox, like a soft belly, and both hard plastic lacetowers? Why they… got weird sizing? Unisex? I was all about to start a presto bank in boston but then i left to go get a degree…

Jude keeps telling me that there’s a Presto with a Greek god’s face on the front, and I’ve never seen it, or heard anyone mention it outside of Jude and other Philly heads but it’s a grail of mine. Not the shoe, the picture.

As for this one, I think it’s a retro of the original black presto that came out turn of the millenium. My friend Nick says that the original black Presto is a perfect shoe, and it is. It’s a perfect shoe. This one is close.

Kind of a short update today. This is really one of the better Air Max 97s of the last few years. Besides the original colorway - not the one with the wrong, splayed air bubble - this is the best one since the shoe stopped being regularly produced. Monochrome kix - brogues, boots, flats, japanese slippers, crocs, white on whites, etc can be blocky. These are not blocky. Voltage Zoom Havens can be too sexy for some, but these are Air Max 97s. No one will think you’re wearing anything cool, unless you’re in Turin, the East Village, or similar environs. You want to see a dozen pairs of beat silvers in a row? Head there. Wanna see any old girl in a sundress buying an $11 coffee? Go there.

Nothing too bananas here but this is really a shoe worth looking at, what with all the fakes and boring co.jp’s chilling on ebay by the dozens. This shoe is a blue fire… any brighter flame would be a lie.

Take a gander:

According to lore, Penny Hardaway had the single greatest workout in NBA assessment history. Workouts usually involve running and jumping drills, endurance testing, jump shooting, basics, and some one-on-one hoops. This workout, however, was so great that it cemented this fellow’s position as first number one goddamn overall pick. No one knows what he did, but he did it that afternoon, stomping into every NBA General Manager’s head, creating a would be dynasty with young/roided Shaq (who has still not cashed any of his NBA paychecks… real talk), and jumping into a hell of an ad campaign that still leaves me misty.

No one’s quite sure exactly what happened during that workout, if the conversation was that resplendid, if he dunked from the three point line, or made 2 granny shots in a row playing 21 with Jerry Krause, turned down a date from Mitch Kupchak’s slutty kid, pulled a rabbit out of his Raptors bag, etc etc etc. This is not a normal state of affairs. We live in a pretty transparent age - Canadian legislative procedures notwithstanding (one love to party discipline and closed cabinet sessions) where legends don’t exist. I would reminisce, starry eyed, about Uppercut in my cold water flat until, one afternoon, surfing, I came across photos of their reunion show, carpenter jeans, empty room and all. Maybe there’s too much transparency. Maybe the world just never will be ready for Uppercut. I feel as if both these things are true.

But, getting back to the point, if the workout is legend, then he is legend. An NBA player, real name Anfernee first of all, had some early seasons that would be described as unholy were he not so quicksilver and sleek with that old ball. He was all pro for a minute. His sneaker ads, with a purgatorial, pre A-list Chris Rock rivalled any of the Jordan ads.. and as for the shoes..no one expected the first penny to do as well as it did. but along with Sprite, Scream II and the Lost Boys, they killed it. Everyone was balling in Penny’s. That’s just what it was.

But this was all window dressing compared to the Foamposite, the Penny One. It shut down the game. Legend (legend) has it that the Nike guys came in to his office/pool house with a hundred models, each a different peak of Nike footwear technology. “oh this thing? it weighs half a pound, cools your feet while you dunk and is designed after the dinner wing of the Taj Mahal. We call it the Air Uttar;” “Hey now Deon, this is a low top, but there is a quail feather sock liner that rises up to mid calf which the RAND corporation has proven prevents rolled ankles by 500% - it will roll Allan Houston’s ankles.” But out of either boredom or sheer insouisance he did not like any of these, taking the last “oh these? I forgot to throw them out on the way here” shoes from the lot. The shoes that looked like the jail cell in Demolition Man. I’d say that I’m not good enough a writer to describe this shoe (the only one I trust to capture this heat unit would be late James Joyce) but in reality I just havent been in enough wind tunnels or kept up with the Sloane-Kettering Memorial Institute’s research initiatives as much as I should.

The ones without the swoosh are better than the regular foamposites, and the lightning ones, which I believe got reissued, or are going to, are equal fire. These shoes look VERY weird on my feet, but it might have just been my Levi’s.

Just look at, and click on, the pics. This shoe - they destroyed the mould* - is a triumph of whimsy and fire. This shoe is legend because it was picked on a lark, was the last one in the pile, and has spanked every non-bron pro hoops shoe that came out since (one love to J Kidd) it came out. Penny, meanwhile, is kind of a punch line now. No one remembers how unreal he was. He could have ran the league if not for injuries. Playing through the early part of this decade, he has nonetheless fallen on lean times, none leaner than his return to the Heat, with Shaq, as #7.

click here:

*i should mention that somehow, the mould was either dug up or pieced back together from the million tiny pieces it used to be in and the shoe was retroed a few times last year. at the exact same price point that the originals go for. legend.

One of the better shoes nike has ever made or run with. Sheeds, there were about 5 of them. First, if I’m not mistaken, the white (low), then the black, then another one, then the red. After that, there was a duotone or two, but by this point I had moved up north and it was harder to follow. Nike put a lot of time and money into the Sheed line, and a lot of extras. We’d see lows, monochrome. He’d wear mostly pistons colorways, highs. But how fly did they look on gettyimages or in SLAM?Out of all the things Rasheed Wallace was known for - big man, would foul out, would get T’d up, took that game to OT last year with a 1940s grandma-belly shot from half court, can have a decent work ethic, was a Tarheel (and a good one), is sometimes motivated, but not always, is always important (the Pistons can’t even beat the bucks without him), he will shut down Chris Bosh like it’s going out of style, he got sent away from portland for being a bad influence (in the 90s!), the NBA dress code was instituted because of him, his championship wrestling belt and his garbage bag, he sat out a quarter of the regular season because of technicals, he does not have one regional Detroit ad during the many, many league pass games I copped last year, the thing on his head - the most impressive is that he has played his entire career, college, Portland, Detroit and presumably high school, in Nike Air Force 1s.Do you know what that means? It is impossible to convey what kind of a feat this is. I did this for a weekend, I am quite thin, and I could barely make it to work the next week. After a game in Taiwans (that’s right) and a game in these same black sheeds, I was feeling the effects of a shoe as old as I am. My knees were shattered, my feet felt like loose bones in a bag, my back was tight and I had the shittiest kneck. These shoes have no support and very very little air. That a big fellow - and sheed is about 7′3, 500 lb - can pivot and shimmy, shoot, post up (well..not that last one) and lead the league in winshares*, in shoes designed more for being a hustler Barry than playing hoops, makes the rest of his life not seem like a New Yorker article.I wore this very pair on the train and got one of the best sneaker related compliments of my life (wealthy dowager). But after balling my spindly frame felt like shaq on Thanksgiving. Sheed is the guy, he does it himself. He’d be into that auction title, check that out. These shoes sell themselves, despite serious hindrance. This is why I will leave the room when the spurs come on but I will watch Pistons basketball on a sunny day. Whatup George Blaha..Click this link to see to believe:*probobly

Legitimate heat for your shortie. Too bad they only come in men’s sizes, also too bad it seems only the ones sold in Berlin have hit ebay so far, and there are 216 pairs total in each of the two colorways.

These remind me of those Easter Egg 180s from a couple years back - they didn’t even make those in men’s size 6 - how am I supposed to c0p for my special lady lady friend?

Wish it came with this matching toothpaste.

Size US10, orange. My love affair with orange sneakers is long gone, but the gimmick of the matching toothbrush is making me reconsider.

Forbes… whatever happened to this shoe? What ever happened to SB’s? I feel like things have changed a lot in the last few years, and this whole thing is an ill bellwether. Floorpunch played a Breakdown song last sunday and no one knew it. People wear those weird new SBs everywhere with jeans skinnier than 2 sticks… I’d rather see my pizza on the floor than SB’s on my feet but I’d be a liar if I said I wouldn’t lay down for this shoe. This is still an unattainable shoe. I’ve had friends and well wishers rock some first series SBs, I’ve had some rare Jordans on my feet, and I know a guy called Jay Bil, but Forbes, probably only Forbes, and maybe Denims, are the Grace Kelly of Nike Dunks. Though I don’t think you see em unless you either work in Royal Elastics’ office or live in LA and like to go get lunch.

These shoes’ prices keep rising to the point that they’re unwearable. I’ll wear a pair of DS blacktoes to a black label society concert, but you wear these and theyre still Dunks. Theyre still being rocked here there and everywhere. But at the same time.. these are so fly dude. So much cooler than the Unforbes, too. Some guy in my italian politics class rocked the Unforbes on the regular, and thats my opinion.

click the image:

seller has 30 pics on page: