You Ain't Getting Corks. 5 Shoes You Can Cop Instead

Let's cut the bullshit. If you have a life and not well connected, your only real shot at copping the LeBron X Corks are a bunch of random lotteries and Nikestore. Face it, you aren't getting them shits. and that's okay. You'll live. You can still enjoy your weekend and, most importantly, you can still cop some great shoes for a fraction of what you'll have to spend to cop the Corks.

Here are five great shoes that you can pick up right now without having to pay more than retail.

5. Nike Air Max 90 Engineered Mesh

The engineered mesh Air Max collection is being slept on. Y'all better wake the fuck up. I love these two colorways and you can find them both in most sizes on nikestore.com. Retail is $120 and shipping is free if you have a nikestore account. You can also pick these up in the classic Infrared colorway at your local Footlocker or Champs. Treat yourself.

4. New Balance 574 "Year of The Snake"

MANNNNN LISTEN! I have these joints and they look just as dope in person, better even. You can cop most sizes here and use code GET4YOU at checkout to get them for about $90 shipped depending on your state's sales tax. Quit fucking around and cop these. Fuck you need Corks for anyway?

3. Nike Zoom Jet Turf 97 Retro

This is Brett Favre in his prime.

This is the shoe that Favre was rocking back in the day before he could text dick picks. This is the shoe he wore when he had to take his dick pics with a polaroid camera and send them shits to broads via the US Postal Service.

This shoe is a classic. You can cop them right now at Eastbay. Use code IPEB3246 at checkout to get 20% off and get them for around $120 shipped.

2. Nike Roshe Run QS "Split" Pack

If you follow this blog, you know I fucks with the Roshe Run heavy. I love this shoe, but I thought they have started to go stale with some of the newer colorways, but these are amazing. I know some overseas sites are already selling them, but these will pop up at your local boutiques, Niketowns, and Nikestore.com for the usual Roshe box price of $70. Make some calls, do some research and these should be an easy cop while everyone is beasting for the Corks.

1. Nike Flyknit Lunar 1

The Flyknit was one of my three favorite releases from last year and these are even better. The lunarlon platform is incredibly comfortable and these are an easy cop everywhere. Eastbay, Nikestore, Finishline, Footlocker, and all of those sites physical shops are carrying these for $160. Price point is a bit high, but you jabronies pay that for Jordan retros made out of synthetic foreskin leather. 

You can also wait on these to see if they go on sale, or wait until you can use discount codes online if the $160 is too high for you.

Cop a pair. You won't be sorry.

There are plenty of dope, drama free options other than these that you can cop this weekend. I know you all want Corks and I wish you all the best of luck in copping them. But let's be real, you ain't copping those shits.

When Limited Actually Means Infinite

So yesterday I did a post on my experience with New Balance's custom program,  I copped two pairs, so as you would imagine, I spent a good amount of time experimenting with the colors and materials that are available.

As of late, I've noticed a lot of boutiques have been doing NB collabs using the 574, which is dope to me because I love 574s. However, I didn't think it was very dope when I realized that every single one of these collabs can be made on New Balance's website. These stores have all passed these off as "Very Limited" usually to 50 pairs, which is unfortunate because I've already seen some of these pairs going for double retail on forums, eBay, etc. I'm not that mad at the stores because they're all charging about what it costs to make your own pair on NewBalance.com. 

My beef is how there will surely be someone who overpays for a pair on the secondary market. Fuck that. I know some will argue that if someone overpays it's their own fault for not being informed, which is somewhat true, but that doesn't make this whole thing any less shitty. So that's why I'm writing this post, so if any of you were thinking about copping any of these, you can just build your own through New Balance. 

Walters x DJ Mars "Holiday Pack"

I fucks with these. Love getting into the holiday spirit. I like supporting local shops, but fuck these dudes out here trying to sell these joints for $200+

and this fuckyberg too (shouts to @Dallas_Penn )...

I encourage all of you to go troll these two if you wish to do so. Here's a screen cap of how you can make them both on NewBalance.com :

Fuck that limited bullshit. If you copped at Walter's in ATL to support local shops, salute. If you copped to flip...

Other stores that have done the same shit recently include Ubiq in Philly:

Concepts in Boston with their "Home Vs Away" Pack:

And Kith with their Grand Opening 574s as well as their USA pack:

All of these are dope shoes in their own right and props to whoever designed each pair. I just with these shops would be upfront about the origins of these shoes and not pass them off as collabs, because that only fuels the hype machine that these resellers try to turn a profit off of. 

That's all I got on the topic, just doing my part so that we all stay informed and don't get caught out here overpaying for kicks.

Peace.

The New Balance Custom 574 Review

I recently ordered two pairs of custom New Balance 574s from newbalance.com and I could not be happier with the results. For those of you who aren't familiar, New Balance offers a custom program (just like Nike iD) on their website for two classic models, the 574 and 993.

New Balance's customs have a great selection of colors and are priced very well. The 574s are $114.95 and the 993s are $174.95. You can almost always find a 10% off + free shipping discount code to get these down to about $110 shipped including tax.

I ordered two pairs on Tuesday, Nov. 20th and both pairs arrived by Tuesday Dec. 4th. This is an incredibly quick turnaround when you consider that I live in California (They're made in Massachusetts), and that NB and UPS are both obviously closed for Thanksgiving. 

Right off the bat, I was impressed with the quality. The suede and mesh are on par with the materials you see on many New Balance collabs. The leather was also high quality, worlds better than what we're used to seeing on Jordan retros. The craftsmanship is also great. The stitching is all on point, no glue stains, and the shape is perfect. Overall, the quality is much greater than what anyone in the sneaker community expects to get for $110 these days, which is refreshing. 

I'm a huge fan of Nike iD, but this is a better product. I've never had any real quality issues with Nike iDs, but the price point + 6 weeks wait are too much to deal with when a competitor is offering a similar experience with better quality and shorter wait time. I must reiterate that the quality on all of my Nike iDs has been very nice and I'm always very pleased, I'm just trying to state how New Balance goes above and beyond on these customs.

Enough about the experience, let's get to the kicks and what inspired them:

The New Balance 574 Custom "Weekend @ Bernie's"

These were inspired by the movie "Weekend At Bernie's". I wanted to make a shoe based on Bernie's outfit because I felt like I could use another summer-type sneaker that's more toned down than all the bright ass Nike Basketball stuff I like to rock in the summer. For those of you that are unfamiliar with "Weekend At Bernie's", cheek it out. Shit is hilarious. I loved it as a kid. Here's a pic of Bernie and the fit that inspired the colors on this shoe:

New Balance 574 Custom "Ultra Travolta"

"So yeah, at the Grammys I went Ultra Travolta. Yeah that tuxedo might have been a little guido."- Kanye West on "The Glory"

That lyric set up my frame of mind when designing this pair. I just wanted to show out with these and give them a colorway and feel you don't typically get with New Balances. As far as the colorblocking goes, I was inspired by the "Red Devil" 670:

I didn't want my shoe to be a total ripoff of the "Red Devils" so I thought to go with the black midsole and add some more colors to the mix. Every sneakerhead has a ton of black/red shoes just off Js alone, so I chose to add some green and a touch of yellow to give them that Gucci colorway. I went with Green and yellow because I'm a big fan of the 24 Kilates Asics Gel Saga:

I love that shoe, but it's one of those pairs that I don't love enough to pay the silly resell prices for.

So far, I've rocked the Ultra Travoltas and they're incredibly comfy. I really love both pairs and I highly recommend customizing your own pair. You won't be disappointed.