WORDS ARE VERY UNNECESSARY

I’m guessing that I’m not alone in buying stacks of Japanese language publications. They’re rarely cheap (unless you actually visit Japan, postage or the markup in UK stores can be brutal) and can, unless you stick to your favourite titles and their myriad spinoffs and specials, be a let down once they arrive. But generally, with a mood of all-pervading geekery and a single niche taking up the first chunk of pages, these men’s clothing bibles are a triumph of obsession, covering territory that few western editors would ever dare tread, unless they were looking to bruise their already sensitive circulation. Fortunately, the language of unfiltered nerdery is global and singular. I wait for my Amazon Japan delivery in the knowledge that I’m not going to be able to sit and absorb every word. In fact, I’m probably not going to find a single sentence in there that I can decipher. But I’ll get flawless photography, detail shots, a sense of history—because origin years of a garment will be included— and, as a bonus, there’ll be some excitable captions in English.

If you’re really into the same kind of things as many Japanese consumers—good coats, vintage clobber and things you didn’t know you needed, but are so aesthetically pleasing that they’re necessary—then you’ll always be happy with Lightning, 2nd (Lightning’s younger brother, geared at a younger crowd), Free & Easy, and the tens of other titles that appear each month. ibought magazine takes consumerism to its compelling conclusion with page after page of stuff people bought recently, while GO OUT is the place to see unexpectedly awesome things like big branded GORE-TEX New Eras and costly rucksacks. Sometimes, a cartel of magazine editors unite to create a Whole Earth Catalog style paean to expendable income book stuff called, appropriately, Stuff, with sequels like Stuff Returns. The notion of being able to wander to a 7-11 style store near your house and find a 200 plus page tribute to Americana that examines the minutiae of denim rivets seems otherworldly, yet in many Japanese cities, it’s a norm. Minimal advertising, vast distribution and king-like levels of content means that, to quote Dave Gahan, words are very unnecessary. Every now and again you get stung for 15 quid by buying something completely uninspiring, but you would have blown that on something grass-fed in a bun that didn’t deliver anyway.

The Japanese approach to over analysing and cataloguing sports footwear appeals to me, because it’s a lane of its own that isn’t a youthful preoccupation with six or so silhouettes, nor old man griping over the shape/price/materials/availability, or whatever this month’s moan is. Boon Extra editions from the mid to late 1990s are still my favourite books on the topic, even if the copy could be calling me a bellend for all I know. Japan’s age-old fanaticism for shoes is something that resonates with me. They were up into the high 990s and four digit masterpieces from New Balance before the inevitable slow crawl of hype made the alternative to the bullshit—shoes that are still masterpieces—into another item caught in the bot and queue crossfire. I still feel that some shoes, like the reissue of 1996’s 999 that you only ever seemed to see in Asia, and the MT580, should never have had a release in the western world. We’re not built to appreciate them like we should. We should be observing from afar and making the pilgrimage to bring them back for ourselves and friends with flattened boxes and a not-guilty walk when it comes to NOTHING TO DECLARE.

2nd’s New Balance Book is the third solid NB mook I’ve seen over the years, and while the text is Japanese again, there’s enough imagery of grey suede and nubuck running shoes, factory imagery and history (the 1995 M585 and original M580 from 1992 are useful to see) to make it a worthy pickup. Many will find something new in there and the know-it-all will pick it up anyway because they’re too far gone with this collector thing, and bask in the knowledge that they have the knowledge when it comes to this sprawling, occasionally illogical secret society of numbers on tongues. You’ll probably pay some extra loot to get it, but this is comprehensive enough, despite not trawling some of the rarer releases or delving deep beyond running — like all the other good Japanese publications, it’s best used in tandem with other far eastern records of archive excavation. You could use Google, but it’s so awash with crappy content for content’s sake, and depressingly devoid of all those great little Geocities fan pages, that pricey paper is still your best bet.

ESCAPE

There’s plenty of little corners of footwear cultdom that haven’t been flogged to death yet because nobody actually knows why they ever existed in the first place. The Nike Escape collection is one of those unturned stones. Like Foot Locker’s Limited Edition collection from the early 1990s — a line that paralleled Escape in its executions — these shoes were just there in selected stockists one day. Premium materials and muted colours on some of the best shoes of the time, back when most colourways were just there rather than relying on specific concepts. The real name of this collection was actually a fancier-sounding Escape by Nike when the project debuted in late 1988. Two Air Force IIIs (as seen in the video for Straighten It Out by Pete Rock & CL Smooth), two Air Cross Trainer Lows, the proto ACG Lahar and Son of Lava Dome, an Air Windrunner, plus the Street Shark turf shoe all got a new appearance for the launch and with an RRP of $125 on those IIIs, they were obviously aiming at a moneyed consumer.

I’m not entirely sure what Escape by Nike was all about — it doesn’t seem to connect to 1984’s Escape trail runner. Instead, this felt more like a deliberate attempt to target consumers looking to wear Nike designs for fashion rather than athletic reasons — the materials seem more luxurious and the colours were targeted at everyday wear. With the Air Safari a year prior being an early experiment in hitting the leisure wear audience with that merger of Windrunner and Air Max, Escape looks like a follow-up. With All Conditions Gear just created, maybe there was a connection there of some sort. In many ways it seems to be the grandaddy of today’s relentless rollouts of themed makeups, except back then even Nike seemed nervous about describing what they were trying to do. The White/Chocolate Brown-Black colour combination (note the lack of Escape tongue labels on the samples shown on the page above) would find its way onto several shoes, defining the look of this project and being part of some more recent JD Sports exclusives as well as some excellent reissues from the mid 2000s — the Air Force 1s, Air Force IIs and Air Trainer SCs could have easily made this page if it was a catalogue from either side of 1988.

Escape didn’t end with these eight shoes either. From what I’ve seen, there were at least two more Windrunners (including the lesser-seen one in this image with the colour scheme seen on AM93s, Huaraches and AM90s), a very rare and incredibly simple Air Max Light (see below) with a matching Son of Lava Dome and — unless I dreamt it — a Greco wrestling shoe. All additions to the 1988-1990 Escape output list are welcome in the comments below.