I’ve been doing a decent job of Gilt abstaining, but I saw these kicks and had to spring for it. I love Generic Man. All of their shoes are hand-made in Portugal and feature high quality materials. Right here is a pair of the Academy Hi from Generic Man’s Spring/Summer 2010 collection. Beautiful shoe featuring smooth perforated suede with a rubber tip, leather accents, lined with leather on the inside, and a gum sole. Very nice deep navy color. Super stylish, great all-purpose sneaker. Would look badass dressed up or down.

I’m wearing these bad boys here at Gigantic Studios.

Generic Man | Gilt Groupe

One of the things I love about Gilt is exposure to brands I hadn’t heard of before. Zuriick is a great example of one such brand. Zuriick is a small-time 3-year-old footwear company that doesn’t “overdo branding.” Their main bit of branding is that all of their soles are purple. Zuriick features a lot of cool, colorful shoes. I love this pair of Alpha Beatas. Love the blue accents on the lace-holes.

Zurrick currently runs their entire online business on Big Cartel. I checked out their online store and lo and behold, they had a sale that I had to get in on. I got their Albert Ocean, which are hip and comfortably puffy hi-tops. Love that signature purple sole! They don’t even have a size printed on the tongue.

Here is a mini-documentary with the guys from Zuriick discussing their mission and how they use Big Cartel to run their business.

Zuriick | BigCartel | Gilt

I picked up this pair of Paxton kicks from Jump in Soho the other weekend. These shoes are somewhere between dressy and casual – a nice all purpose pair. The shoe is patent leather with a pony hair upper. Very nice. I believe these are a relatively old release from Jump, so they’re pretty cheap at the Soho store if they still have them in stock.  I love that Jump has such a wide variety of shoe styles, but manages to kill it on all fronts.

http://www.jumpcorp.com/

I couldn’t resist snapping a great photo of my Gourmet L’Nove kicks while I was at Prospect Park even as Gao Di and Alexa made fun of my ridiculous shoe obsession. Ah, so pretty.

These are the shoes, not bad… I guess, but really… not for me. I tried to like these but I really couldn’t wear them with any sense of pride. I like the style of the shoe, but the colors are just kind of bleh. The other day I played a show at Glasslands (of which there are amazing photos) and Samer of Berzerkulosis gave me a great idea to simply spray paint the things. Yesterday I went and picked up a can of Montana Gold Spray Paint at Artist and Craftsman Supply in Williamsburg in hopes to turn these shoes into something wearable.

I got a can of metallic gold and after struggling with the damn spray can and realizing that I hadn’t removed the ring under the cap, we were good to go. The results are pretty awesome.

Tell me you don’t want a pair of these gold babies! These things rock now! The spray painting was super easy and relatively even, I went a little overboard on the left shoe but it’s fine for a first go.

I particularly like how the little Sperry logo came out. I’ve got newfound love for these kicks now. Wooop!

Here’s something pretty different from one of my favorite footwear brands, Jump. I bought these Spike sneakers a few years ago and rocked them pretty hard until I wore them to the ground. They are super cool slip-on kicks but now they’re pretty much beaters- my foot is basically touching the pavement when I wear these and they’re getting a bit tattered.

I saw Hifana, I think, back in 2006 at a New York x Tokyo Hip-Hop NYC Summerstage event. This Japanese breakbeat duo put together one of the coolest live shows I’ve ever seen, attaching all of their gear to animations and video clips on so many screens that the power went out and Summerstage went black for a good 10 minutes while they had to get everything up and running again. The visual audio experience was so intense  I copped their debut album Fresh Push Breakin’ shortly after the show but nothing can compare to seeing them kick it live.

Cool to see them here working with Wieden+Kennedy for an awesome Nike Free spot called “Music Shoe” that features some… well… music + sneakers. This reminds me of just how creative and interesting these guys are. Ah, memories!

Hifana has a third album coming out soon – I suggest you check them out! (thanks to Gao Di for finding this ad!)

Wieden+Kennedy | Hifana

Here is an awesome project called ALIVESHOES (not to be confused with ALIFE) that brings together ideas of high fashion, sustainability and artistic expression. Each shoe is beautifully hand-crafted and numbered in Italy with sustainable materials like untreated and organic natural cotton, leather and cork, ecologically scented foam rubber and fully biodegradable TPU polyurethane. Each shoe is also individually hand-colored. These shoes also feature the original sketch of the installment stitched into the tongue. As ALIVESHOES says on their own site, “wearing ALIVESHOES is like wearing nature itself.”

These shoes are then used as the medium to create sculptures and art installations. Above is a photo from Steve Siegel’s Beach Blocks, an installation of a large number of shoes on a beautiful landscape in Srolo, Italy. The shoes used in the installation are now available for purchase for a base level of 150 EUROS, which covers the material costs, and the option to build up your contribution to charitable partners and future art projects. The purchase page is super cool as well and let’s you pick the individual shoe you want. Tons of monochrome color options!

These are some seriously beautiful shoes and I am yearning for a pair myself. You can tell a lot of love went into each shoe. There are more projects to come from ALIVESHOES and they look awesome so I recommend you go check them out. The price is a bit steep but hopefully, one day I’ll get my hands on a pair! My birthday is coming up, friends & family… I would like light blue.. size 43….

Check out ALIVESHOES (via Thrillist)

Gourmet | Gilt

This deal was something I could not pass up. Y-3 Yohji Yamamoto Honja Hi Tops. I have been wanting a pair of Y-3’s for a long time, but never really wanted to pay the full price for a pair ($250+), and lo and behold, a sale comes and I’m on top of the shit like I’ve got rabies. Check these badass shoes out. Unique shape featuring crinkled leather and perforated stripes and tip…. glorious.

Y-3 | Gilt

Sperry Topsider | Gilt

JUMP

Creative Recreation | Gilt

This shoe is awesome. The shoe features a simple design of white canvas and very light grey suede. Comfortable and sleek (kinda retro too), Generic Surplus does it again. I need to grab these in grey at some point (and knowing my condition, that point is coming along very soon. In fact… it may have happened already.) Retails at $72.00

Generic Surplus | Gilt Groupe