RUSTIC TECH

Yep, I’m still peddling that old shoe schtick. Not content with writing a top 50 trail shoe piece for Complex a few years back that bricked because kids don’t care about 20-year-old brown rustic-tech (rus-tech?) shoes, I collaborated with my friends at High Snobiety to run through 25 of the best Nike ACG shoes ever — naturally, somebody asked where the non-ACG Terra Humara was with the quickness. This one’s good because HS brought in the talented Dan Freebairn to illustrate the shoes, meaning this might be the first and last time you’ll ever see a drawing of a Pubah or Terra Tor, because they’re not the kind of shoes that anybody normal cares about. I think I’ve run my course on the footwear history side of things (unless anyone wants to give me money to talk on the subject of ancient footwear. Anyway, this was fun. I’d campaign for a lot of these shoes to be reissued if I didn’t know that they’d probably brick with a 21st century audience. All Conditions Gear is 25 this year (26 officially — the Pegasus ACG was 1988 but the category and logo really seemed to take form in 1989) and my childhood ambition of giving one of these shoes a colourway remains. If you think something deserved inclusion, leave a comment.