“I want pics of my fucking shoes already or you can forget about coming to visit me.”
-Dee
I was greeted with this harsh message on my Facebook wall from my friend hahaha. Anyways without further ado here’s a look into the custom joints my man Steve Sane over at Cube helped me hook up for my friend’s birthday present since Timberland’s recently launched custom boat-shoe program is limited to the UK (edit: now available in the US as well). With everybody and their baby’s mamas rocking them, the concept comes at a pretty ideal time when brand-to-brand offerings are all pretty similar. Mind you despite the multitude of colors up for choosing, I really find it pretty hard to do some ridiculous shit with a boat shoe. The style itself is pretty refined and subued to begin with and since its all online, it’s tough to pair bold colors together not knowing how they’ll REALLY look off the factory line (aside: My favorite unorthodox approach to the boat shoe, colette x Sebago).
It wouldn’t make any sense to go about the design with something plain Jane, so I figured obviously pick a nice clean base color and work in a contrasting color. Not really rocket science. The pink turned out pretty nice against the “Rootbeer” brown and since a girl’s rocking them I figure the contrast and colorway was well-suited. The insole embroidery is kind of cheesy though haha. Happy birthday Dee!!!
It’s always nice to reminisce about how much the whole custom process for footwear has come along. From the start of NIKEiD till now, the whole custom process doesn’t seem to be as popular as I had originally thought. I’m not sure why, a lot of cats in the sneaker game are looking for that exclusive joint and what’s more exclusive than a 1 of 1? Or does the fact that it is actually quite readily available (should you by coincidence nail the same colorway) and detract from its specialness. It’s unlike a Hyperstrike-esque drop in which you KNOW this is it, nobody else can grab them shits. Or maybe there’s just way too much work and uncertainty in the final product. I wonder what company margins are like for customs vs. in-line drops. I do appreciate the fact that unlike the past, the floodgates are wide open for customization with some brands going the further distance to incorporate performance customization with footbed scanning like adidas mi.
Fuggin’ bedtime…