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Those look great to me. The soles look a little off but nothing too bad.
I know it’s been beaten to death, but I don’t understand “core” skate shoe companies and the whole sole thing. I understand the part about how it costs to develop molds for new models so they reuse soles on multiple designs. But the designs on the soles themself, they just look weird. Like on this shoe, it looks so generic in a way. Look at a Lakai shoe from the era when these were originally released. The design of those shoes looked so much better quality, design and material-wise. What happened over the course of 20 years that made the development of skateboard shoes to look so wack.
The designers nowadays are just less talented than those who pioneered the aesthetic of skate footwear in the late 90s. Simple as that. I think it's a result of nepotism/hiring friends rather than having really strict guidelines of hiring those with exceptional taste and talent. That's why there's been such a snowball effect of forgetful designs in skateboarding since the 'golden era'. It was the 'golden era' because of the sheer amount of raw creative talent in the industry, coinciding with the cultural zeitgeist of skateboarding. It was the perfect storm that will never happen again. That's why the reissue nonsense needs to stop and why we need new designers making new sh*t.
Also, looking at the market for skate shoes, so many more companies are present compared to how it was back then, and yet the majority of the amount that is spent may be the same when taking inflation into consideration (avg shoe was $60 back then, now its $80-85).
Think of it as 10 brands with skaters spending a set amount of money back then where the money coming in could cover doing different molds and being more "unique", and now with more brands and possibly the same amount or close give or take higher or lower, the amount going to the brands is smaller, and as some of the core companies are being hit hardest with a lot of other brands now in the mix that weren't focused on skating before (you can like that or not, that's not the point), they may be at a point where the unique aspect is few and far between unless the brand is financed through other means, like how some companies are doing surf/snow/bmx divisions to help make up for what a different division isnt bringing in compared to the past. It makes it harder to stand out and some "play it safe" and plan uppers to fit how one sole mold is to maximize their production costs and still have something to bring to the market.
It sucks to say it, but it's tougher for more "core" companies that solely rely on skaters as their demographic to keep them afloat, hence why some shoes have crazy collabs or colorways no skater would be interested in, but an outside demographic may consider interesting to buy. Without a "home run" shoe to keep them afloat for several years from core brands(the AL50 for circa comes to mind) and help them have extra funds to try new ideas, it's something that I dont see changing anytime soon.
Idk, just my thoughts.
Topic: Post UPCOMING/RECENT shoe releases thread (Read 8686628 times)