My honest opinion is that skate shoes are in a very odd period right now where people are either firmly thin, or firmly thick. I think the industry as a whole needs some change. Vans is oversaturating their market with cheap shoes, Sole tech doesn't know what direction they're going, Lakai is happy with being ten years in the past, DC has one foot in OG and one foot in the type of stuff that relegated them to bargain bin fodder, Adidas throws out the same crap as always and is losing ground in skate shops, Nike is complacent, new balance is pretty decent, last resort is good, converse is alright, and everyone else is seemingly irrelevant.
It's incredibly boring to walk into a skate shop and see the exact same thing:
- Nike Ishod, Blazer, or Dunk if you're lucky
- Last Resort in several color ways
- 1 or 2 OG DC models
- Lakai Cambridge/Telford
- Typical Vans
- New Balance 1010
Maybe I'm just jaded, but I wish there was just something different once in a while. I was looking at old CCS catalogs, and it seemed like each year there was tons of brand new models, brand new companies even. Besides the 808 and Ishod, what has really come out this year? The latest company to hit the scene is last resort, and that was two years ago.