Bape Soda

Bape is probably my least favorite brand. They based their brand on making 200 doolally knock-offs of NIKE AF1s. I find them derivative and uninspired. They also are responsible for the current trend in over the top color and use of patent leather.
These latest shoes are based off orange and grape Fanta soda. Now these shoes are primarily popular in "urban"areas and were originally popularized by hip hop producer Farrell Williams. I find the reinforcement of racial stereotypes too obvious not to say anything about. I think this design choose is thoroughly gauche. What's next KFC colors? May I suggest sneakers and clothing based off of food stamps?

Do The Pee Wee Herman

The first good pictures of the Pee Wee Herman Dunk hi came out. It shows that you can do something relatively high concept without making it horrendously garish.
Check out the extra shit Nike does to make you feel special. It's like when a woman wears fancy lingerie all day as her little secret. No one has to know, it's your secret.

Triumvir3 Custom Dunks

I saw these custom Dunks and was thinking, yes they are ugly, but not ugly enough or interesting enough to pass on. it has purple camouflage that will only hide you in a forest designed by Sid and Marty Kroft. Then I saw...

THIS

MATCHING ROBOT!

Holy-moly shit folks. Dear people who make ugly custom sneakers, Triumvir3 has raised the bar. now you need to make a matching gundam robot model. What really amazes me is that the pattern which looks ridiculous on a pair of basketball shoes, but on a robot it completely makes sense. I guess the reason is that if a 40 story fighting robot with 100 foot long riffle showed up it gets it's way. Who are you to question a giant robot's preference for paisley contracting with argyle?

NIKE 3m Brick Pack

Nike is coming out with a whole pack of shoes made with 3M material laser etched with reptilian prints.

Nike has pretty much exhausted all of it's options making ugly shoes with colors. Now they are proving they can make grey garish. To Nike ugly isn't a black and white issue. Nike realizes that ugly doesn't lie in subtle shades of grey, but in brazen shades of grey with bold patterns. My favorite touch is the metallic grey smooth pressed with a gator texture contrasting on top of the 3M scotchbrite laser etched with a similar pattern.

nike free

Check out this wacky Japanese version of the Nike Free trainer. Think it's ugly with all those crazy colors? Wait for it...

BAM!

LIGHTPLOSION!!

Not only does it have 3M reflective material, but it's laser etched with a crackle pattern. I find it amazing that there are some starving wage slaves in some third world country manufacturing these shoes in a
sweat shop. All day long for 12 hours she is slaving away on some specialized sewing machine to adhere the green sole to the reflective crackle print upper. I wonder what thoughts run through her mind all day while she completes this boring task. My guess is she's thinking "what the fuck is up with the Japanese? those mother fuckers are fucking nuts." Either that or "I'm so hungry and I can't afford basic medical care."

I really can't get enough of anything with a reflective material. If a material isn't reflective, glow in the dark, holographic, or day-glo it doesn't belong in the 21st century.

Jacob's Technicolored Dream Shoes

Nike my be the market leader in ugly sneakers, but everyone's playing catch up. Adidas, Converse, and New Balance think the best way to do this is to put as many different colors on one shoe as they can. These NBs will be sold exclusively in UNDFTD in japan, and worn exclusively by the colorblind and clowns with orthopedic conditions.

DQM "bacon" air max 90

Dave's Quality Meat is one of my favorite sneaker boutiques in NYC. The place is set up to look like a butcher's shop. If you're looking for an ugly pair of Nikes, but only can make one stop go to DQM because to my knowledge they are the ONLY store in all of NYC with both an SB account and a quick strike account. Also they receive "tier 0" drops and carry the new Adidas skate board line along with the vans Vault line and many other ugly shoes other stores don't have the balls to carry. Any day now these mildly ugly Air maxes fashioned after strips of bacon will come out. There is no official release date, but word has it they will show up within this week. I think they should come out Friday at sundown so they sell out before anyone that observes the Sabbath can purchase them.

Since you've been gone

I'm back from Vermont and back in the blogging chair. Two big things happened during my hiatus.

First the fine people at Sports by Brooks linked to me. They also wrote a nice blurb about my ugly blog. I would like to Welcome you all.
Secondly the hit HBO show Entourage had a new episode about an ugly pair of limited edition kicks. several people emailed me about this.


These are the one ofs made for "turtle" by Fukijama who is actually a real artist/sneaker customizer.

These are the shoes that were allegedly limited to 200, but in reality they only made this one pair. I happen to like these the texture of the leather is nice and the laser etching isn't gratuitous. Other than that the world already has way too many AF1s. A while back I blogged about a pair of custom pair of AF1s Fukijama made as a prize for the Sole Collector contest out west. They featured paisley satin lining. The entourage shoes really can't compete with that level of ugliness.


If anyone else links to me I will link back to you cause that's how I was raised.
VOC stars
James K Polka

RECALL NOTICE

This is an important recall notice. If in the last week you purchased a orange and red snakeskin or gold and brown ostrich pair of air maxes RETURN THEM IMMEDIATELY. The problem is after a few day use the midsole will start cracking and become so ugly you will no longer be able to wear your shoes. I had to get this warning out before I went on vacation.

P.S. thanks for the emails about my blog and what you like/don't like.

RS100 nitelite

Puma's really pushing the RS100s. these are part of a 3M pack. The Puma 'stripe' and toe will be made out of 3M scotch brite. The Nike's that were made with this stuff look bad ass, particularly at night. People should seriously consider getting a pair. I recommend the blue ones that won't make you look like a homosexual space man.I'm leaving for vacation on Saturday morning. This may be the last post I make for a week and a half. However when I come back there will be over a weeks worth of ugly sneaker news to report on. I am pretty psyched. I would love to get feedback from anyone about what sort of posts they like, what they could care less about.

AF1s you can't refuse

These are a custom pair of AF1s made from horse and lined with satin. They don't have a nickname yet so I will start calling these Elmers.

NEW NIKE SB DUNK

A new ugly dunk from the Nike skateboarding division. as far as I know it doesn't have a nickname yet. I liked the use of wool in the negro league pack and in the tweed pack but I feel it's use here is gratuitous. I have upgraded my blog to the new version of blogger that uses tags.

PUMA

Puma has a rainbow of clydes coming out. Sorry these shoes aren't ugly (enough) but I wanted to make a gay pun. Seriously Puma ha been working hard on the ugly sneaker front. Also they get props from me for supporting fixed-gear cycling in NYC and elsewhere. Fixies area growing trend that Nike seems to be ignoring completely.
These RS100s are more up to par with what I am looking for in too much color. I like the extra laces and how they match the extra colors in the sole. It's good stuff. These are the kind of shoes you get for a retarded child so that if he runs away he's easier to spot at night.

Sneaker shopping

Yesterday I hit up several NYC sneaker stores: DQM, Supreme, clientele, flight club, alife, classic kicks, rival, and some non boutique stores along the way. I picked up a brand new pair of SB classics for someone's Birthday. At flight club which is a consignment shop I saw that nike sb golf dunks were going for 143 bucks. I knew that there were still a few pairs left at DQM for 90 bucks. I ran down there and picked up the last pair for 90 bucks and put it up for sale at flight club. Nike SB also
made this weird shoe in blue. They also made a golf dunk with cleats in black or brown.

HOUSTON STREET PIXEL ART

The truly ugly ugly shoe news seems to be drying up, but these little gems caught my eye. They are made by DKNY with the artwork done by eboy. From where I stand it looks like the art is of Houston street around Broadway.

Escort Force

These slip-ons are designed after illegal escort flyers in Tokyo. They will be available in time for Halloween. I plan on being the Village Voice. The rest of my costume is a Michael Musto mask and a t-shirt critical of the bush administration.

Tennis Anyone?

On Alife's website they have new pics of the hotly anticipated tennis ball pumps. The title of website says "gone till November." people are taking this as a hint that the shoes might be coming out some time in November. These may be ugly, but IMHO they are good ugly. My only concern with these sneakers is that due to such a high surface area I would assume that they get dirty easily and are hard to clean. These shoes will break necks.

I can see myself in your shoes

For a mere 295 dollars you can buy these shoes designed by Bernard Willhelm. The sneaker is made from white leather, gray suede, mirrored and iridescent plastic, inspiration, and 9 grams of cocaine cut with No Doze. Bernie wanted to create a velcro shoe with materials more ridiculous than velcro. Congratulations on seeing your idea to completion. On behalf of the 7 people who read my blog I would like to thank you for showing up nike for once.

Interesting side note: My spell checker doesn't recognize the word "velcro." It suggests instead "vulgar." apparently blogger's spell checker has better taste than Bernard Willhelm. Google is fucking amazing! They should make shoes.

The Night The Lights Went On In Your Shoes

These shoes are powered by a AAA battery and either stay on or brink. They are modeled after uptowns AKA nike air force 1s. Technically these aren't up to my standards as ugly shoes, but I feel like they are ugly from the inside. Finally a shoe for adults that can trigger epileptic seizures.

Pink Seersucker Vandals

Only pictures have leaked, and not much info is known about this shoe. My guess is they will 'drop' April 27th to coincide with national take our daughters to work day. It looks like a 7 year old girl received an invite to the NIKE iD studio and went ape shit. Just try assembling an outfit that pulls together both pink seersucker and silver. The only human being I know that could wear these non-ironically is Fabrice Fabrice

Magnetic Shoes

Check out these custom magnetic shoes based on the Marvel super villain Magneto. As people are running out of ways to make their sneakers ugly the only logical step is to make them more like action figures.

Win Ugly Sneakers

Yesterday in Germany the pink YO! MTV RAPS Pumas came out and sold out almost instantaneously. Only 225 pairs were made. Only 50 of the green version will be made and Puma is giving a pair away. All you have to do is enter their contest. To be compleatly honest these shoes don't reach my criteria for ugly shoes. Puma consistently gets bested by Nike.

Happy B-Day MTV

Only one pair of this MTV Adidas Superstar will ever be created, but that's probably one too many. It will be auctioned off and the money will go to MTV's Staying Alive Foundation which puts PSAs on MTV informing young people about AIDS. Did you know that if you jumble up the letters in Adidas it spells "AIDS AD" Coincidence?


I just read on Freshness that Redman of the WU Tang Klan will be opening a sneaker store in Staten island (where I live). I am pretty psyched.

White Elephant

The Sole Collector sneaker collection competition just wrapped up in Vegas and the winner was awarded this pair of disgusting shoes. The Nike AF1s feature candy orange patent leather and paisley satin lining. Once I was sad because I had no shoes. Then I met a man that won a pair of shoes for having the greatest sneaker collection in all of Las Vegas.

too ugly

This just in. Nike's skateboarding division is comming out with three dunks (low, mid, hi) with a three bears theme. Faux fur and bright colors go together like hunting and drinking beer.