Recent Pickups: Sneakers

I've been accumulating some more sneakers.


First, are these black sambas. I have quite a few Adidas soccer shoes. What I like about the samba is that they are low and kind of wide, which means that the A.P.C. rescue will break well over them. This makes them a little more versatile than something the Chile 62, which are narrow and has a bit of high profile that is somewhat unflattering to the rescue. The big ass tongue on these is a little ugly. I've seen some sambas with smaller tongues, but they were in a white/cream and an unflattering shade of brown. I'm not sure if they were universals, which are sambas with smaller tongues, that were just labeled as sambas to get more people to buy them. In any event, these are going to be a rain shoe for me (i.e., they'll get worn on days where its raining or the forecast calls for rain) and they'll be fine for that. They have enough heft to keep wet denim from dragging on the ground and they won't get indigo stains).

Second, the Junya Watanabe x Converse chuck taylor. I've had my eye on these for a while. I couldn't bring myself to buy them at regular price, so I've been stalking them -- waiting for them to go on sale. I managed to get them for 30% (I bought them when I took down the Engineered Garments field jacket) off at TNT Blu, which I think is the only place that I know of that carries them in Toronto. I was kind of wavering between the black and blue check -- I almost bought both of them, but decided to get the blue ones. I did end up going back for the black ones a week later, but they weren't marked down.
Oh well ....

I like the whole Junya Watanabe concept of putting his take on a classic item. Here the check pattern is so simple, but really cool. I think everyone is expecting something like a vans checkerboard pattern. This is kind like that, but different. They look really good with jeans. I haven't seen anyone else wearing these in the city yet.

They also come with this great bag. An extra bonus.


Third, the converse jack purcell. It's funny, you can walk into any store that sells sneakers and see a wall of chuck taylors, but you have to kind of look around on the floor in front of the wall for the jack purcells and if you aren't careful you might miss them. I developed a fascination with these a few weeks ago so I decided to get some.
I like the thing at the front, its kind of like an extra bit of rubber, with the black detail. The purcells are also a little wider (or they seem to me) than the chuck taylor, which gives them a slightly better silhouette. These are just so simple and plain, they are pretty much perfect. They need a few indigo stains for the finishing touches.

These were fairly difficult to find in my size (10). I guess some people In Toronto have been making a move on them besides me. I went to Holt Renfrew on Bloor Street and the Italian guy who works in the shoe department told me that the large sizes didn't even make it to the sale. On queen street two of the shops that I favour were sold out of the big men sizes and pretty much left with the small sizes. I found these at Groovy, not a regular stop for me, but they were sold out of the bigger sizes in other colours and styles except for the white leather.

The white on the leather ones is flatter than that on the canvas ones, so they aren't overwhelmingly bright. I also wanted a black canvas pair (i think the black canvas ones look better than the leather ones), but I had no luck on queen street. I asked someone at Groovy about them and he said that they've been trying to restock them for a while, but they haven't been getting their orders filled. I did manage to find a black canvas pair in some shop on Yonge Street. I found this shop by walking south on Yonge from Bloor until I found a shop that carried them, I couldn't tell you the name of the shop, some asian woman was working there. I don't have any pictures of them yet. I don't think that the black ones will see much action during the summer, but the white whiles will be in my regular rotation.