one problem of emerica is seriously the team. just not a super exciting team like it was back in the day and also not a lot variety in the skating. how do you fit someone who skates ledges or does manuals on that team without it being off? the only guys that don't focus on ditches and rails/gaps that come to mind are spanky and julian davidson. everyone else is just skating ditches in the desert or hammering away. most of the team seems boring personalitywise and the shoes sort of reflect that. that's why i think you get 4 promodels that seem like slight variations of a wino/romero laced.
if the roster was more varied like back in the day, i guess you would see more interesting designs, because riders wouldn't just want another winolike as a promodel. that would brouden the range of the brand organically. but at this point, why would you want to be on emerica as someone who skates like westgate for example. if you'd have any self awareness you'd think your skating just doesn't fit the brand and/or image they are going for at this point. so emerica probably also has a hard time attracting any sort of skater other than something like mostly white baker/tumyeto/creature ditch goblins.
that said most shoes that don't look like winos are totally fine imo. temple, tilt and gamma really bring it back to early emerica. maybe just get rid of the ugly ollie pad on the temples or make it a different shape. the tilt should have a g6 cupsole option imo, that's the only thing that turns me off. gammas should just be g6 as well. other than that, i think those shoes are great. pillars seem to be good. these seem like a good idea to do a cupsole version of, as someone mentioned.
that last one posted before the dakotas was really bad tho. and the dakotas just look like the boring winolikes as a dylan slip on. they should slow down with newer models imo, maybe update the range to more current specs, and release less pro models that look like the same fucking shoe and things would be looking much better. and also it would help when you bring back models like the mjs/og to not have them only sit in the few shops that carry emerica, but have them available online. or maybe release them early in shops, but offer them online a month later. i'd like to try out the ogs, but the first colorway doesn't appeal to me, and i kind of dread to go to the local shop that sells emerica. so maybe they will come out in all black/yellow or some other classic color and will be a gr.
but they seriously need a more interesting team to make them more than just ok shoes at this point. once upon a time emerica catered successfully to east coast skaters as well. there's nothing wrong with the basic vulcs and dress inspired shoes if you see emerica as the "adult" sole tec brand (whereas és is like the athletic/tech brand and etnies is like the vanilla heritage thing that the other brands are kinda built on). just get someone who is also on dime or supreme to ride for you and have them ride gammas and i'm sure suddenly kids will want that shoe. of course this won't ever happen. in any case, the brand has to get out of this desert ditch pigeon hole imo. or maybe not, maybe they are killing it in latin america with this image. who knows.
Topic: Post UPCOMING/RECENT shoe releases thread (Read 10227213 times)