2009 Aug 26: Kelly Hiking Boots

Are these not the most amazing hiking boots you've ever seen in your life and don't you wish you had a pair? Apparently not, because I snatched them for $15 on clearance.

These are really amazingly well made hiking boots, men's size 8m, sturdy leather, comfortable fit, padded in all the places they're supposed to be to not chafe when one is... what, hiking up the side of a mountain? In these shoes? I don't think so! But perhaps some of those early expeditions to the South Pole would have been more successful, if they'd had a pair of these babies to light their way through a blizzard. The black rubber on the sides is in fact emblazoned with the inspirational message "Dream It. Be It." How can you not love shoes that are stylish, functional, and inspirational?!. The brand is "First Down" and I've never seen them before or since.

Bonus points for the reader: Can you tell the city in which I work? Big hint: notice the tower between my feet.

2009 Aug 25: Bapesta

Found these on eBay. I believe they're Bapesta knock-offs. If I'd done more research I would have figured it out at the time, but I didn't know these were a major status symbol in some subcultures, and that the price was "too good to be true". Seventy five bucks for a really cool pair of kicks in fact seemed a bit steep, but fair. Had I known that the originals run around $400, it would of course have been obvious these were fakes.

I will say this, at least they're really high quality, more or less the same as the originals. These shoes are really popular in my neighborhood, everyone comments on them. I liked them because they're loud and graphic, who knew that they were the height of rapper fashion, and Japanese teenage culture at the time?

I can argue all the sides of the debate about knock-offs, but I fall pretty solidly on the side of the trademark holder. No, these shoes aren't worth $400, no matter what factory they were made in. It's also true that the people that ripped off the design and trademark didn't actually take any business away from BAPE, not on this pair anyway, because I would never have spent $400 on a pair of sneakers, are you out of your friggin mind? I love me my shoes as much as the next unrepentent shoe-queen but we need a new dishwasher before I need to spend $400 on a cool pair of kicks. I hope even if I get really rich somehow, I never spend $400 on a pair of sneakers, and instead buy 4 pairs of really good sneakers for poor kids, or something, you know, like Babe Ruth, buying new shoes for all the kids in the orphanage

But, if you think the price is stupid, you don't buy them. If a company made shoes like the original BAPESTAs from BAPE, I still would have bought them because I'm not brand conscious, simply quality and style conscious, but a lot of people would not.

Forget the legality, it's just wrong to forge copyrights and trademarks. If you've ever had any of your work stolen and passed off as someone else's, you'd be with me on this. At any rate, I believe that one made the original top ten list, in fact.

But because I own these, I wear them. A visual reminder to myself to know what I'm buying.

2009 Aug 06 : Green Day sneaks

These are today's shoes.

Ok, I'm a tad embarrassed that these are "Green Day" canvas high tops, but I covered the round logo with my own custom fireplug logo, so noone can tell. They're just so darn green, who could not love them?