P i c k U p s : P A R T III

In this edition of Pick Ups, we bring you an eclectic range of kicks. First up are the OG colourway of the AM1s. The AM1s are one of my favourite sneakers so when Nike released the OG colourway last year, it was only a matter of time before I jumped on them. I didn't get them when they released, but better late than never. Next up is a pair of boots, the Ransom x Adidas Summit boots in brown. Being from Toronto, it gets pretty cold and snowy. Thankfully this winter hasn't been that bad, but it seems like winter is coming late. And what better way to trek through the snow and slush than in a pair of boots from a local brand (support your local brands!). The third, and probably best pick in this edition are the Copper Foamposites. I was lucky enough to grab these from Nike.com on the drop date. They were definitely worth the hype but I must say, they do not pop as much as I had thought. Still gonna cop the Eggplants though...

w o n d e r w a l l...

If you haven't heard of or seen some of the work done by this crazy interior design firm you really need to travel more! Or you can visit their site (Wonderwall) for a taste!


Image via honeyee

t h e c h a l l e n g e - u p d a t e (p a r t 2)...

It's been a while since my last update on "The Challenge" and I know I've been getting some slack from some ppl bout the loophole i had for my recent trip to Asia. If you've been following the blog you already know I set a challenge to myself to limit the amount of kicks I'll be consuming this year. Here's an update to my list with some changes I made, peep the list and share YOUR thoughts on the updates...

1. Adidas ZX Boat - "Yoda" (Adidas)
2. Air Jordan Slam Dunk Pack - AJ3 & AJ2 (Jordan Brand) ~ "Rumoured Release"
3. Air Jordan XI Retro - "Concords" (Jordan Brand) ~ "Rumoured Release"
4. Air Jordan VI Retro - "White\Varsity-Red" (Jordan Brand)
5. Nike Foamposites "Eggplants" (Nike Basketball)
6.

You'll notice that a few changes were made and a few things were removed from the list as a result of my trip to Asia (Air Jordan VI Motorsports and Air Max 95 Neons). I took out the Kobe V "All Stars" cause after seeing them in person I wasn't overly impressed. Although they are decent, I didn't consider them to be "6" worthy and as a result passed on them. With the confirmation of the "Eggplant" Foamposites dropping next month, I've added them onto the list because who can resist an icy pair of "Eggplants"?

Another thing you will notice on this list is an open slot... It's only February and a bunch of kicks are rumoured to drop during within the year so I'm keeping this slot open but as of right now there are a few likely candidates for this spot; AJ3 CDP, Adidas Original Fortitude Mids (Grey/Orange), AJ1 Silver Anniversary Edition (I only want the briefcase!) and even a pair of AF1 Highs (White/Grey). Although I haven't decided on what to cop I already know this is going to be a VERY tough year...

*SIGH*

Keep it on lock with us here @ e n t e r s p a c e... as we'll be unveiling some of our gems from our personal collections in the next couple of months.

n i k e - h u m a n c h a i n...

I'm always a big fan of Nike's ad campaigns and this is one is no different...

Peep the new "Human Chain" campaign, enjoy!

Human Chain from NikeSportswear on Vimeo.

b e a t d o w n...

Im not a big hiphop fan, but in houour of the Nike Air Copper Foamposites dropping on Saturday, check out Wale's newest vid (remember, Wale was first to debut the Coppers and got the interwebs all in a buzz). Also of note, he's rocking a Jay's fitted which is likely from Stolen Riches. Dude also samples Bunny Mack - My Sweetie, My Sugar...craziness.

t h e s h o w d o wn - p a s t & p r e s e n t...

It's always nice to see McD's bringing back the classics w/ a twist...

Past


Present

k o n i c h i w a...

Greetings from across the world!

If you've been following the blog you already know that I've been recently traveling through Asia on a 2 week trip to Hong Kong and Tokyo. Asia is one of the largest markets for sneakers, maybe even larger than that of the American market. I'm currently bloggin from hotel room in Akasaka, Tokyo and let me tell you that having been in Tokyo for only 2.5 days has been an experience of a lifetime. During my first leg of my trip in Hong Kong, I visited the infamous "Sneaker Street" located on Fah Yeun street in Mong Kok. I last visited this spot back in October '08 and was able to see quite a bit of kicks in the shops that line this street. This year I was able to see some stuff like the Spacejams ('09 Release) as well as the Air Jordan 1 Silver Anniversary edition in the stores. Unfortunately I wasn't able to snag a pair of the Air Jordan VI Motorsports @ the Nike Basketball store and wasn't too happy bout that. As a result, I didn't cop anything in HK this year in terms of sneakers but I will be back for a couple more days before I return to the Great White North.

Enough bout my trip to HK, the real experience has been in Tokyo which to me is the mecca of sneakers! I visited a number of spots during the course of the last 2.5 days and was pretty impressed with the number of stores and quality found in the Harajuku district of Tokyo. Most shops I found were located at Meiji-jingumae Station and there was some serious heat in these stores. A couple of standouts were Atmos, Kicks Lab and Kinetics. While scurrying around the small streets within Jingumae (4), I came across some smaller shops with some nice heat like the AF1 "Black Albums", Dunk SB "TIFFS" as well as your standard Yeezys. One thing I did notice was a common trend among most Japanese sneakerheads, they really like their Jordan 1's and let me tell you they fetch a good penny here! During my first visit to Harajuku, I snagged myself a pair of the AM95 "Neons" (Ltd. Edition) from Atmos. Nike recently released a new version of the AM95s for the European and Asian markets dubbed the Ltd. Editions which was meant to be a better rendition of the OG's than the model we saw released back in '08 in the North American market. On my way out of Harajuku I passed through a shop called Kicks Lab which in my opinion is the Japanese version of Flight Club. They've got some serious heat but enter at your own risk as their prices are so high they'd make you vomit. Case in point, I saw a pair of the AJ VI Motorsports and Spizikes (AJIV Colourway) going for 27800 Yen (approx. 365 CAD) respectively. Needless to say I wanted the Motorsports but NOT at the price lol. Finally as we exited Harajuku, I noticed a sneaker spot called Kinetics which had flyers up advertising the release of the AJ VI Motorsports for 21000 Yen (approx. 265 CAD) on 02/11/10. I talked to the store clerk who told me that they'd be opened on 02/11 at 10am so I made plans to be there to make sure that I didn't miss out again.

Today I woke up bright and early to make sure that I wouldn't miss out on these joints so I woke up and headed over to Kinetics round 9:30 am thinking that there might be a line up but there wasn't. I waited there till bout 10am when the guy at the shop told me that they'd be open at 12pm instead today. Since you know I hate to lose out on things, I stayed in the same spot for another 2 hours to ensure my pair. As a result, I was outside in the cold waiting for bout 2.5 hours for the shop to open. No one ever ended up coming to the line which was pretty surprising considering how tough these bad boys are to find at a reasonable price. After my campout for the VI's, I headed over to Kichijoji which is a smaller suburb outside of central Tokyo. This spot is known for their sneaker shops and I was on a mission to go and hit up two spots in particular; K-Skit and PX- Megastore which are both located at Kichijoji Station on Inokashira Dori street. I hit up PX-Megastore first to check out the prices as it's known to have better prices for the stuff they have (check out Tokyo Mike's article on both stores @ theshoegame.com). I found some stuff but nothing I really wanted so I headed over to K-Skit. K-Skit is one heck of a store, it's got crazy stock and some serious heat. If you check out their site @ k-skit.com, you'll see some stuff that looks pretty decent for the price, but what I noticed was that somethings are too good to be true. Most of the items there are in beater status mode. I mean for what you're getting its not bad but like most ppl, I don't really want kicks that are too beat. I went there with the intention of copping two pairs of AJ IV retros from '99 but only ended up leaving with one pair that were new but with some cracking and clouding due to age. I mean they set me back 18690 Yen (approx. 232 CAD) but they are brand new and have that Nike Air on the back...

Another day, another dollar...

F U F i n i s h L i n e...

Being in the nasty north, we weren't blessed with the AJ6 Motorsports. However, word dropped earlier in the week that Finish Line would have them online and only a few select stores would be carrying them. Rumour was only 5000 were being made available...talk about quick strike. One of my boys just moved back from the US so he still has his credit card and his fam lives there so we could ship there too. Things were falling into place. I had his credit card and shipping info in a note pad, opened up for easy copy-and-pasting.

Prior to the Midnight EST release time, the Finish Line page said "this product is currently not available". So at 11:55 PM, we started refreshing the Finish Line site every second eagerly anticipating the release. I was at my house, and my boy was at his. We figured we'd have a better shot if we both tried to cop em. At 11:59 PM, my palms were sweaty. Midnight, and still "this product is currently not available". 12:05 AM..."this product is currently not available". 12:10 AM, 12:15 AM...nothing. Then FINALLY, at 12:17 AM there they were. I quickly picked size 11, selected 2 pairs and proceeded to check out. Filled in the shipping info, billing info and credit card info. Hit "Process Order" and then got the worst fucking message...some shit about the credit card not being authorized!! Checked with my boy and he was getting the same message. So then we thought maybe it's because we're both trying with the same info. So then he tried...nothing. I tried with my Canadian credit card...nothing. We called up two friends who both live in the US and got their credit card info. Tried both of those...nothing. All the while, the Finish Line site was slow as shit. Sometimes not responding for minutes on end, and getting the above screen message. We tried calling the customer service line, and of course it was closed.

At the end of the day, we didn't get anything, except a broken heart. Sometimes the shoe game can be kind to you, and sometimes she can be a bitch!

a i r j o r d a n v i ...

If you're a Jordanhead like me you were probably really excited when you heard that JB was set to release a true retro in the AJ VI this year. Many people on the internets were fiending over the AJ VI in the black/varsity-red colourway. A lot of discussion was goin around how ppl were both feelin and hatin on this joint. Don't get it twisted, the peeps who were hatin on these joints were only purists and were sad that they dropped the infrareds. The AJ VI is considered to many peeps to be THE Jordan, second or third to the III or the XI.

The Spacemen were all super excited to hear bout the drop way back in early 2009 and eagerly anticipated the drop. I even considered coppin them pre-drop at a premium. Instead we all opted to pre-order them a few months early with the fear that if we didn't we may end up out of luck. However when Jan swung around we noticed a crazy phenomenon, they didn't sell out. Like the many other J's that dropped with equal hype (True Blues & Spacejams) most anticipated that these would fly off shelves, they didn't. Does the infrared make that big of a difference? Is the infrared that much of selling factor?

We're all pretty shocked here at enterspace considering that fusions (aka tranny J's) sell almost as well as these joints if supply is any indication. If you're one of those peeps who didn't grab them already, head over to finishline who still has a full size run of these for 149.99 USD.

b e a t d o w n...

oooo weee. cant wait until the full length album, Distant Relatives, drops.