“Crocs’ collaboration with up-and-coming designer Julie Kucharski, better known as Left Hand LA, exemplifies Crocs’ willingness to shine light on hard-working creatives, no matter the size of the operation. Left Hand LA is known for their 1-of-1 pieces, constructed from thrift store finds and emblazoned with patches and design details added by hand. Her work has been seen on a few celebrities, most notably Rihanna, Beyoncé, and Swae Lee. Left Hand LA stayed totally on-brand with their glitterbombed Classic Clog that came with an array of brightly-colored Jibbitz to customize it to your liking.”
— Max Lyons, Crocs Collabs: The Ultimate Summer Shoes' Best Remixes
“One of the chunkiest, most tech-filled, monstrous skate sneakers of all time, the Osiris D3 is the stuff of legends, especially to younger skateboarders. The D3 silhouette immediately evokes thoughts of baggy cargo pants and tall tees and is rumored to be the best-selling skate shoe of all time. While skate fashion went “slim” for a while, the cycle of fashion has once again come around to chunky “dad shoes” and exaggerated silhouettes. Recently, ASAP Rocky and Under Armour released Rocky’s debut shoe, the Under Armour x ASAP Rocky SLRo, to widespread controversy, as the shoe was essentially a glorified remake of the Osiris D3. The SLRo created a lot of buzz around the origin story of the shoe, leading to a lot of press on the shoe’s designer, Brian Reid. All of these factors converged for The Hundreds, Reid, and Osiris, to finally debut a D3 that’s been in the works for several years.”
— Max Lyons, The Hundreds x Osiris D3 Is For Everybody
“Reebok Workouts first gained a lot of popularity back in the early 90s when larger-than-life skaters like Stevie Williams and Kareem Campbell embraced the shoe as their daily driver. Not only were Kareem’s first signature on Duff’s (Duff KCK’s, Kareem Campbells Kicks) shoes clearly based on the Workout, but Reebok actually ended up working with Stevie Williams’ Dirty Ghetto Kids (DGK) brand to produce upwards of 10 different DGK Reebok skate shoes. Reebok even tweaked their branding for the skate world, shortening it to “RBK” with a silhouette of someone ollieing next to the letters. Guess which model Williams picked to be the canvas for about 70% of those shoes? Yup, the workout. It does make sense though, proper cushioning and ankle protection, reinforced suede or leather uppers, and a solid grip make this shoe reliable on the streets. He also shows some love to the Reebok Club C with two Reebok Pump Club C iterations, one made of incredibly durable basketball leather.”
— Max Lyons, Don’t Go Barefoot: Skating the Top 10 Most Influential Non-Skate Skate Shoes
“What might be most impressive about K-Swiss though, has been their willingness to work with licensed entities as different as Angry Birds, to more common ones such as television and movies. While collaborations like these occasionally appear from each brand in the sneaker world, it seems that K-Swiss has really doubled down on this strategy, leading to collaborations that are just as much movie collectibles as they are a sneaker. K-Swiss is no stranger to movie collaborations, whether it be with the cult-classic Clueless, or a nostalgia-filled Ghostbusters capsule. The work they have put out in this past year proves that not all pop culture collaborations need to be a cut and paste of brand assets.”
— Max Lyons, How K-Swiss Mastered Sneaker Collaborations