FROM DA BRICKS

Check out Nice Kicks’ recent feature on the hybrid phenomenon

Given that FDB is really all about the music, I’m going to resist the temptation of drilling out a 1000 word diatribe on the current trend of Nike and Jordan Brand to fuse old models from their archives to create new kicks and attempt to keep this brief. The shoe you see pictured above has spurred the sneaker fiend in me into action in no uncertain terms: I’m begging you Nike, don’t do this.

Now it’s not even like fusions/hybrids have to necessarily go awry. Off the top of my head I can think of several shoes in the Swoosh’s history where the concept of bringing together design elements from a number of different sources has worked well (see Huarache Lights Bursts as one example), but this latest planned concoction is nothing short of a travesty. For those not in the know, court legend Andre Agassi held a long-standing relationship with Nike during his career that proved incredibly fruitful in terms of great kicks. Having recently retroed both the Air Tech Challenge II and the ATC III, I was understandably hopeful of a similar treatment for the ATC IV in the coming months. It’s the black/purple/white model that has always lit the fires in my belly, an undeniably fabulous combination of colours that was set off with the use of suede and a loud yet tastefully executed tie-dye effect on the rear of the upper.

Is describing footwear as sexy wrong? Most probably. Does that stop me feeling a genuine sense of arousal when gazing at this vintage ATC IV advertisement? Absolutely not.

Current outlook for release? Not good. Instead it looks like Nike will be combining elements of the two recently retroed shoes with key components of the IV in a release scheduled for the beginning of 2009. The result is a bastardisation of the aesthetics of all three kicks in no uncertain terms and a shoe that looks, quite frankly, hideous. I can only hope at this stage that Nike also plan on bringing back the ATC IV in its original form alongside this release but something in my gut tells me that this isn’t going to happen.

As regular visitors to FDB, I guess that ultimately you may not care. Sneakers may be a part of hip hop, but they certainly ain’t the music. However, when you spend at least half of your waking hours looking at, discussing and obsessing over sneakers then this sort of thing becomes a serious issue. Very serious.

Somebody please help me.

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