TORSION

I’ve never paid a great deal of attention to miadidas before, because it always came off like a weaker, under-utilised rival for NIKEiD, but the photo print app is some next level entertainment. It works like Instagram and the end result is solid — the open mesh Flux didn’t do a lot for me when it debuted because it sailed too close to the Roshe in my eyes but the wave printed nylon variations had me hyped. I’ve heard that numbers in the low thousands and IG-style filter systems are going to weed out any schemes to create some genital pattern one-offs. Shoe collaborations are duller than they’ve ever been these days — promiscuous and biased brand behaviour has meant every weekend is strewn with conceptual limited edition mediocrity — and this technology means that the individual can create a shoe that’s a lot better. Seeing as I’m a huge nerd, I lazily chucked a repeat print of a German catalogue page from 1990 onto the shoe — those Torsion inclusions in Kays catalogue back then were cause to beg to pay weekly for some ZX 8000s and the bashy rudeboy days of the technology deserve to be depicted in OTT fashion. From a Q&A with the mighty Peter Moore for a forthcoming project, I was unaware of how much the Torsion designs underachieved in America — they were a driving force in EQT’s creation because Moore really disliked the look of the system. We Brits always seemed to love those early creations and I believe that I’ve created the geekiest shoe ever made in its honour.

I’m taking part in a discussion this Thursday on documenting youth culture with Ewan Spencer, Nina from What We Wore/The Cut (whose book drops soon with an intro by the don Ted Polhemus) and Clive Martin from Vice. There’s more information on it right here.

If you’re UK-based and struggling to find anything good on Netflix, Matt Wolf’s Teenage is 77 minutes well spent, bringing some visuals to some of the more interesting tribes explored in Jon Savage’s book. Having failed to attend a screening last back and hunted for another showing to no avail, I was surprised that somewhere that’s often so bereft of anything I want to watch was housing it. Like the curse of the Amazon Prime trial, nobody ever cancels Netflix on time — even if they DIY tattoo the final free date on their hands and eyeballs — so you may as well watch something that’s worth a month’s payment on its own.

A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS

On peeping the Nike archive in Beaverton late last year, I made so many mental notes that my memory seems to have crashed since, fragmenting the amazing things that I was shown. I remember Air Trainer Max with a 180 unit, some sketches of the Air Safari, with it looking more like a loafer of some kind and some BWs that looked like they were built for a memory — those are just extracts of a blur. One thing that leapt out was that Nike’s apparel was strong from the early days — I’d been led to believe from books like ‘Swoosh’ that apparel was a weak point until the early 1980s. Incorrect. Displayed in lockers, there were some pristine examples of excellent design.

The morning before visiting, I put my camera to the side, assuming I would get it smashed to smithereens if I so much as aimed it. On arrival, Dan (who does an excellent job of looking after the Department of Nike Archives) asked me where my camera was. That’s one error I may take to the grave. If my spirit has to tread mournfully through corridors, I want it to lurk in that vast, dusty, shoe-stacked space.

In that maelstrom of geekery that was the Nike archive tour, I managed to forget something significant. Champion x Nike pieces. Of course, I’m overstating the nature of the garments, because Nike were — quite rightly — focusing on footwear to start, in the mid 1970s, they printed a few (presumably rush made) designs on Champion Reverse Weaves, tees and polos. They did the same with Hanes and Russell Athletic too, but it’s bizarre to see two brands so close to my heart in a solitary piece of apparel. It was ‘Lightning’ magazine’s peerless ‘Nike Chronicle’ issue/book/bible (shouts to Russ and Koba) that reminded me of that sighting. It’s the greatest (sweatshirt) story never told.

If you haven’t checked out isysarchive.tv yet, then you’re slipping. Yeah, everyone’s making a blog about trousers or retros of retros of reissues, but very few are getting to the crux of the cultural context or even reflecting what anybody in the real world actually wears beyond clusters of circle jerks in beige and khaki single-gear hotspots. These folk are doing a good job of trying to capture the realer stuff. I need to get off my arse and write something for them, because they’ve asked me nicely loads of times and I keep stalling. They just upped an interview with Matt Wolf, who directed the impending ‘Teenage’ documentary based on John Savage’s excellent book.

I have to shout out Sharma from WAH for creating a format I copied for this blog when she dropped knowledge on Raiders caps many years ago and for giving me an uncorrected press copy of Savage’s opus back in 2007 — it was an education, and I loved the image of a “typical” Mancunian hooligan in the late 1800s, with “narrow-go-wide” trousers, an elaborate belt buckle and a peaked cap in an early example of sensationalist scaremongering with regards to the younger generation. I would love to see a “professional scuttler” on SBTV spitting bars about their crime life.

My people at MOTHERFUCKING Patta have relaunched their website with a little blog to accompany the e-commerce and other good stuff. Patta and Precinct 5 man dem are family, and it’s worth noting that they just upped a link to the first ‘Luffie Duffie’ from DJ Edzon. I hope they up the old Patta Mix Tape from the same year too. People need to know that there was once a time – not too long ago – when sneaker references on a freestyle weren’t the corniest shit ever.

While we’re talking about real gs on the European side of things, Thomas Giorgetti gets shit done. If you haven’t seen the screwface he administers at the mere thought of a Jordan II that isn’t made in Italy in the ‘Sneakerheads’ documentary, you’re missing out. That’s the sneer of a connoisseur. From graffiti to creating something that’s more than another workwear line or fey facsimile line, Bleu de Paname keeps with the power moves and this Visionnaire video is good. I like how Thomas ties graffiti to the most prominent of his current occupations. ‘Lil’ Tyler’ magazine doesn’t get the recognition it deserved — the father of many styles.