Colorway or Pro Model

[Atiba Applebum]

Making an attempt to export the convo from the upcoming shoes thread to keep from clogging it up

[pointandclick]

You'd rather have a pro shoe with your name or more money? Is this all about money? Hoping that people that don't skate wear skate shoes? What happened to this thing of ours.

i wasnt there for the main posting of this tonight, but had a similar conversation with friends.

id rather get a colorway of a shoe that has a good track record of selling, i.e. dunk, accel, era, etc... where i could get incentive but wouldnt be the majority of my earnings from that brand. unless youre someone like kalis/louie lopez/busenitz where you have a ton of equity in your name and can get paid, also doesnt hurt when your shoe sells well based on the design.

versus someone like tfunk, whos shoe bombed and turned into a drama fest with dc and deciding for everyone it was better for him to go elsewhere.

my guess is he had his contract tied to sales of the shoe and it didnt do well, which i heard him complaining that dc tanked the shoe so they didnt have to pay him.

[Atiba Applebum]

That’s interesting.  Skateboard contracts aren’t very public so I wonder what those numbers look like for earnings.   

I’m guessing that riders make $5 a shoe off colorways since often they cost $5 more.  Pro shoes probably vary from company to company significantly

[Big_Dingus]

Weird that Nike/Cons are so selective with their pro models. I mean I guess they must be expensive as hell to produce and they have to weigh out all these considerations but fuck you think winning Skater of The Year would get you shoe, no? (Milton, Mason)

[Atiba Applebum]

Weird that Nike/Cons are so selective with their pro models. I mean I guess they must be expensive as hell to produce and they have to weigh out all these considerations but fuck you think winning Skater of The Year would get you shoe, no? (Milton, Mason)

Cons is pretty particularly compared to most, they don’t seem to do much in the way of shop collabs or anything like that. 

Milton could get a shoe, but he loves the chuck taylor and you don’t want an Arto/eS situation where he never wore his first pro model so he could keep wearing accels or Circa Appleyard where he bulked up that super popular Circa model.  Hell, AVE’s first 6-7 shoes were just updates of existing Vans models.   

Mason is DEF due for a Blazer colorway

[HORSES]

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Weird that Nike/Cons are so selective with their pro models. I mean I guess they must be expensive as hell to produce and they have to weigh out all these considerations but fuck you think winning Skater of The Year would get you shoe, no? (Milton, Mason)

[close]

Cons is pretty particularly compared to most, they don’t seem to do much in the way of shop collabs or anything like that. 

Milton could get a shoe, but he loves the chuck taylor and you don’t want an Arto/eS situation where he never wore his first pro model so he could keep wearing accels or Circa Appleyard where he bulked up that super popular Circa model.  Hell, AVE’s first 6-7 shoes were just updates of existing Vans models.   

Mason is DEF due for a Blazer colorway

No diss to Donovon Piscopo, but how does he gets his own Blazer Mid, all the way back in 2017, and we're in 2021 and Mason hasn't had his own despite having 100x the prolific career Donovon has. Timing is everything I guess, but still doesn't make it any easier to understand.

[fulfillthedream]

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You'd rather have a pro shoe with your name or more money? Is this all about money? Hoping that people that don't skate wear skate shoes? What happened to this thing of ours.

[close]

i wasnt there for the main posting of this tonight, but had a similar conversation with friends.

id rather get a colorway of a shoe that has a good track record of selling, i.e. dunk, accel, era, etc... where i could get incentive but wouldnt be the majority of my earnings from that brand. unless youre someone like kalis/louie lopez/busenitz where you have a ton of equity in your name and can get paid, also doesnt hurt when your shoe sells well based on the design.

versus someone like tfunk, whos shoe bombed and turned into a drama fest with dc and deciding for everyone it was better for him to go elsewhere.

my guess is he had his contract tied to sales of the shoe and it didnt do well, which i heard him complaining that dc tanked the shoe so they didnt have to pay him.

where'd you hear or read this?

[Donkey Lips]

As somebody who has never been a pro skateboarder for even a minute in my life – colorway.

Honestly, I wouldn't want to do all of the work associated with promoting a shoe. I wouldn't want to worry about whether my name is selling or not. Embroider my little name on the tongue, let me pick a few colors, we'll sell it for a season and let's call it a day.

[IpathCats]

Isn't the GT shoe technically his own shoe, even though it's just a slightly different blazer? I would try to do something like that, just modify a staple shoe I already skate, have some simple colors, and make it my version of the staple. If I'm skating for a living, I'm definitely trying to get that consistent paycheck, not a seasonal colorway bonus.

[Donkey Lips]

Isn't the GT shoe technically his own shoe, even though it's just a slightly different blazer?

Yeah, Nike considers it a pro model even though the design is "based" off the Blazer. Smart way to do it. Take a proven silhouette that has a lot of brand equity, tweak it a bit for the person and put it on shelves. Saves on a bunch of R&D costs, gives a rider what they want, and it's a safe way to put a pro shoe on the market without causing a lot of "Ew what's that. I can't skate that" comments, because it's what people have already been skating for years.

[twic3]

colorway but thats because I hate seeing pro models like DC evan smith and Tfunks or the old lakai from back in the day where MJ and Koston were just making adidas and nikes rip offs.

fun fact thought, Cons Poppalardo are One Stars today and Nike Koston Ones are Bruins.

[stets]

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Isn't the GT shoe technically his own shoe, even though it's just a slightly different blazer?

[close]

Yeah, Nike considers it a pro model even though the design is "based" off the Blazer. Smart way to do it. Take a proven silhouette that has a lot of brand equity, tweak it a bit for the person and put it on shelves. Saves on a bunch of R&D costs, gives a rider what they want, and it's a safe way to put a pro shoe on the market without causing a lot of "Ew what's that. I can't skate that" comments, because it's what people have already been skating for years.

Same thing Nike did with Cory's shoe, the CK1 or sometimes called the All Court CK.

They just took a vulc tennis shoe from the 70's, added the SB zoom insole to it. They didn't even flop the rubber toecap to cover the lateral side (outside) more... on the OG tennis shoe they had an extension on the medial side (inside) for tennis wear patterns, and they ran that on Cory's shoe. Missed opportunity to alter it properly for skating like they did with GT's shoe, especially the recent upgraded version of the GT.

[Donkey Lips]

fun fact thought, Cons Poppalardo are One Stars today and Nike Koston Ones are Bruins.

No they're not.

[pointandclick]

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You'd rather have a pro shoe with your name or more money? Is this all about money? Hoping that people that don't skate wear skate shoes? What happened to this thing of ours.

[close]

i wasnt there for the main posting of this tonight, but had a similar conversation with friends.

id rather get a colorway of a shoe that has a good track record of selling, i.e. dunk, accel, era, etc... where i could get incentive but wouldnt be the majority of my earnings from that brand. unless youre someone like kalis/louie lopez/busenitz where you have a ton of equity in your name and can get paid, also doesnt hurt when your shoe sells well based on the design.

versus someone like tfunk, whos shoe bombed and turned into a drama fest with dc and deciding for everyone it was better for him to go elsewhere.

my guess is he had his contract tied to sales of the shoe and it didnt do well, which i heard him complaining that dc tanked the shoe so they didnt have to pay him.

[close]

where'd you hear or read this?

local rep. we bought the shoes expecting them to sell okay but they didnt. so we got word to lower the price, so we got a credit from dc. they dropped by like $20 retail each, they still didnt sell and progressively heard more from the rep about how tfunk had a mini freak out the shoe release.

[phlap]

Given the option, I'd rather have the option to have a pro shoe rather than a colourway. I'd love the oppurtunity to really geek out and annoy the shoe designer with my requests for little changes here and there.

<sub>"Hey, can you put a little cut-out here at the back? I don't want then to rub against my Achilles tendon."

"Could we maybe pull the laces in closer together so they don't rip?"

"Actually, forget my last request, just give it ghillie lace loops."

"Can you make the tongue fatter? I had a dream I was really good at Caspers and I want to try some without hurting my feet."</sub>

[moonordie]

Given the option, I'd rather have the option to have a pro shoe rather than a colourway. I'd love the oppurtunity to really geek out and annoy the shoe designer with my requests for little changes here and there.

<sub>"Hey, can you put a little cut-out here at the back? I don't want then to rub against my Achilles tendon."

"Could we maybe pull the laces in closer together so they don't rip?"

"Actually, forget my last request, just give it ghillie lace loops."

"Can you make the tongue fatter? I had a dream I was really good at Caspers and I want to try some without hurting my feet."</sub>

I was going for the colorway option until I saw this post. Is ready tempting to be busting someone balls.

[Atiba Applebum]

Expand Quote

Given the option, I'd rather have the option to have a pro shoe rather than a colourway. I'd love the oppurtunity to really geek out and annoy the shoe designer with my requests for little changes here and there.

<sub>"Hey, can you put a little cut-out here at the back? I don't want then to rub against my Achilles tendon."

"Could we maybe pull the laces in closer together so they don't rip?"

"Actually, forget my last request, just give it ghillie lace loops."

"Can you make the tongue fatter? I had a dream I was really good at Caspers and I want to try some without hurting my feet."</sub>

[close]

I was going for the colorway option until I saw this post. Is ready tempting to be busting someone balls.

I remember hearing Donny Barley wanted a bottle opener worked into the sole/heel of his Emerica but they wouldn’t go for it

[TurdyBird]

Pro shoes should be a special thing. Give colorways to the rest of the dudes who are on the website/ "A squad" and having lots of coverage/video parts.

When manolo was talking about giving dudes like Cyrus, Geronzi, Guy and Worrest pro models, he lost me there. Give em colorways or creative packs like they did with KB but a pro shoe? I love all those dudes, don't get me wrong. They all at least deserve a colorway...but pro shoe should definitely be special. 

Maybe do things like the project BA, with some dudes ( with the legends, but I can't emphasize maybe enough). I kind of like how they did things with the GT Bruin etc too. Or like, letting dudes get creative like the KB clouds with the straps. Considering they are dropping a lot of the flow dudes, this has a 50/50 ratio of happening or not.

One more thing. Seeing those Ishod's man. Really surprised they came up with that for his model. Dude always skated dunks and bruins. The half mesh, half suede joints honestly were pretty cool. Maybe he'll get another shit after they last two quarters and they cut them because they all end up at the outlets.

Take everything with a grain of salt. I've never owned a pair of SB's for a lot of reasons, but mostly because most of them don't fit my feet well. Also, I'm on medical leave from work so I got time to say a lot of shit.