Month: February 2017

The Benevolent Don: Don C Is Giving Away Custom-Dyed SF-AF1’s

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We’re assuming you’ve seen The Godfather before. If you haven’t, we’d recommend you close your computer or turn off your phone, and go watch it right now. If you don’t have the time (it is a pretty long movie after all), here’s a quick synopsis of the beginning: the Don can’t refuse any favor he’s asked for on his daughter’s wedding day, but anyone who asks him for a favor may need to repay it some day in the future.

The old-school Italian mafia isn’t really a huge thing anymore in 2017, but there is a Don who’s doing favors this weekend: Just Don’s own Don C. read more


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Heat Alert: The adidas Y-3 “Triple White” Pure Boost Is Flames

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You may have seen that there’s supposed to be a heat wave in Minnesota this next week (no, this is not a joke). Temperatures are supposed to reach into the low 60’s. That’s unheard of for February. It’s crazy. It’s getting hot out here … so throw on all your jawns.

Sorry, we got a little bit carried away there. Our apologies. We think we just might know the cause of this crazy heat wave though: the adidas Y-3 “Triple White” Pure Boosts that dropped recently. read more


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Beyond Boost: Our Thoughts On The Yeezy Calabasas Runner

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We’d like to start today’s article off by apologizing for the blurry lead image. We wouldn’t usually post an image with quality that poor, but this is a special circumstance. This is Kanye West’s new Calabasas Runner, unveiled at his Yeezy Season 5 fashion show yesterday, and it’s currently the talk of the sneaker world.

A quick background on the sneaker for those of you who might not be familiar: the Calabasas Runner was originally unveiled (unofficially) back in January 2016 when Kanye was spotted wearing a pair in a white/teal/orange/black colorway while leaving his office in … Calabasas. An all-black colorway and a white/teal pair were revealed in the fashion show yesterday, and images of a white/gum colorway (that wasn’t included in the show) have been making the rounds on the Internet as well. read more


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Fragment’s Done It Again With Their New “Chuxedo”

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When it comes to sneaker collabs, you could make a strong argument that nobody in the game has a higher batting average than Fragment.

Year after year, Hiroshi Fujiwara’s design imprint comes together with Nike (sometimes regularly, sometimes as part of HTM) and Converse for clean, well-thought out shoes that stand the test of time … and they’ve certainly done just that with their new collaborative Converse Chuck 70, inspired by tuxedos (hence our self-given “Chuxedo” nickname). read more


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Can The Nike Vapormax Be A Competitor To The Ultra Boost?

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The new Nike Vapormax is a pretty damn cool shoe.

An extra-thin, sock-like Flyknit upper sitting on top of what Nike claims is the most advanced Air unit yet? A Comme Des Garcons collab version? A lightweight, sleek style? Dope women’s colorways (the picture at the top of the article is actually a women’s pair)? Yeah, they’re set up to be a pretty big and important pair in 2017.

But as we all know, adidas is still running things … and one of their most popular shoes, the Ultra Boost, has a lot in common with the Vapormax. They’re both $180. They both feature a woven upper. They both proudly represent their company’s latest and greatest technologies. We don’t think it’s a reach at all to say that the Vapormax is supposed to be an Ultra Boost competitor. But can it succeed? read more


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One Thousand

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One thousand.

Today marks the day that I publish my thousandth personal post on KicksOneTwo (and also post a rare picture of myself). That’s almost three years of a brand-new article every single day at 8AM, be it an opinion piece, a list or an event recap.

KicksOneTwo has done a lot for me. When I conceptualized it while sitting at a desk at my shitty office job in December of 2013, it was just something I wanted to do for fun because I enjoyed writing about the culture I love. I never thought that it would open new doors, introduce me to great new friends, teach me so much about dedication and hard work (do you really think that over the course of writing an article for a thousand days straight, I never once had a day when I didn’t want to write at all?), and least of all, land me a paid writing gig at the very best shop in Minneapolis (shouts to PIFF, my favorite place in the whole world). read more


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Are OVO Jordans Still Gassed?

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Jordan and OVO. Aubrey and Michael. A legendary shoe brand and the world’s most famous rapper.

When the first collaborative effort between Jordan Brand and OVO (the white/gold X’s) released in 2015, the hype was crazy. Drake was untouchable & widely beloved (this is before Views, an album that while a commercial success was not critically acclaimed), and his first collaborative release threw the sneaker world into a frenzy.

The white OVO X’s, the black OVO X’s and the white OVO XII’s all had the sneaker webs going nuts, blew off shelves, and at one point seemed like the only serious contender to the market dominance of Adidas’s Yeezy line. read more


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Supreme’s “Sale” To LVMH: Shameless Clickbait

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Supreme, Louis Vuitton, and LVMH (the conglomerate that owns LV, Hennessy, Sephora and more) have all been in the news a lot lately. It’s understandable: When Supreme and Louis Vuitton came together, it moved mountains. It was a cultural moment of such magnitude that we couldn’t blame you for thinking that it was fake when the news first broke.

Thankfully, it wasn’t fake. But something that would have been just as earth-shattering that’s been making the rounds on the web these past few days is fake. read more


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The SF-AF1 Has Grown On Us

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We’ll come right out and admit it: we were pretty harsh critics of the Nike SF-AF1 when it first came out. We thought the chunky, super-high top look and earth tone colorways were a ham-handed attempt to cash in on the Yeezy boot craze, and we though that Nike saying they were inspired by military equipment was flat-out lame. We were hating so hard we even wrote an article about our general distaste for the shoe.

It’s been a few months now, and as mature, responsible adults (most of the time at least. “Don’t grow up, just glow up” is a phrase we try to live by), we can admit when we’re wrong … and we were wrong about the SF-AF1. read more


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