Ben Smith of Brush Footwear has added another name to his list of clientele by this 1 of 1 camo custom with Complex Magazine. The all black leather Supra Falcon skate shoe was given a bit more color with a dark gray camouflage hand painted on the back heels. A fine detail of the Complex logo also hand painted in a spot on attempt may seem strange but the branding was used as they were given away across Complex’s social networks last week. A matching hand painted hat went to the winner too.
Remember the days when custom sneakers mostly meant Dunks, Air Force 1s, canvas Vans and Chuck Taylors? If not then you probably stumbled across custom sneakers pretty recently as the modern technical basketball shoe seems to be THE base of choice the past year and a half. High price or not the top Nike basketball sneakers for court action have gotten the casual custom treatment high and low. The elder statesmen Kobe hasn’t seen his kicks get all the attention of say Lebrons but he has one here and there. The most recent is a “Deep Space” theme customization on the Nike Kobe VII by JustBeast Customs.
Last month Noldo Customs set Instagram a fire with a simple addition of black to the white midsole of the Air Jordan XI bred retro. Orders surely came rushing in with many others inspired to give the look a shot on their own pairs. This time a customer request allowed Noldo to team up with NYCE Society on a similar design on the XI low. The previously all white with red sole XI low release from last summer was given a snakeskin stitched overlay upon the white patent leather by NYCE Society. The black and red skin was complimented by Noldo painting the white upper, tongues, and midsoles a la the blacked out bred XI.
It’s not ALL about basketball shoes you know? A market yet to be tapped into by sneaker cutomizers is that of one of the world’s oldest sports, golf. But a a golf brand by the name of Kikkor has a keen marketing team as they hired Social Statement to customize a pair of their golf shoes. Based off the biggest weekend in the sport that just wrapped up, Dez of Social Statement took their hip silhouette and gave it a look of The Masters.
One could say you can blame Nike, but the outer space theme is here to stay in custom sneakers. The last year has seen many attempts from great to poor in effort to recreate the galaxy print seen on the official Nike Foamposite All Star release of 2012. The concept has inspired some to get more specific with the cosmic look and the most recent is this “Meteor Shower” Nike Lebron X custom by Kickasso Kustoms. Using the “Prism” Lebron X as his base Kickasso gave the colorful accented design’s charcoal Hyperfuse upper an arrary of airbrushed painting.
Last fall Sab-1 topped public opinion on the best KD IV “Weatherman” inspired custom with his take on the metallic green and doppler radar colorway upon the Lebron 9. With the release of another all black Lebron colorway for the X’s Sab1 decided to give the weatherman look another go. After prepping and carefully masking the Nike Hyperfuse material the customization started with the airbrushed painting of the metallic jade shade of green upon the black upper.
The jumps a few recon sneaker customizers have made in the past year have been huge. Moving away from the classic silhouettes of a Dunk or Air Force 1 to more technical sneakers. One who is steadily rising ahead of the pack of sneaker customizers in general is that of JBF Customs. His latest resume builder is a complete reconstruction of an adidas Crazy 8 retro for one of their signature athletes, Iman Shumpert of the NY Knicks.
Coming up with a new never seen colorway is not easy for anyone at this point from Nike’s official designers to photoshop amateurs to sneaker customizers. But there is room to put a different spin on a supposedly overused color combo. SmoothTip took an often seen south beach look with these “Miami Vice” Air Jordan V customs. What started out as the Fire Red AJ V now has a hand painted gray upper from a previously all white leather.