Fukijamas

I just caught the season 6 premiere of Entourage and had put Turtle's Fukijama shoes on the list.

For those who don't follow Entourage, Turtle is the driver/personal assistant of movie start Vincent Chase.

In season 3, Turtle and Vince try to get the limited edition kicks called Fukijamas, but were unable to using normal channels. This prompted Vince to hunt out the creator of the shoes and have him custom make a pair for Turtle. At the cost of $20,000 that is.

In the real world, the shoes are called Nike Air Force 1s. And they were specially commissioned for the show. A collaboration between Mark Smith and the shoe store Undefeated.

You wanna buy what? Shoes... with Wheels?

Oh yes, shoes with wheels. I really hadn't noticed them until a few years ago when I saw a few kids breeze by me at a local mall. They had on what seemed to be normal pair of sneakers. But upon more observation there were wheels installed within the soles of the shoes.

I later learned that there were many other variations of these 'Roller Shoes'. Some had wheels only at the rear of the shoe, while looked like little shoe cars with wheels on both the front and the back.

The first thing I thought to myself is that this idea was an accident waiting to happen... for the kids that buys it. Though it looks like I'm wrong as they now also make them for adults. Hmm, wonder if I had them back when I was in school. Then maybe I wouldn't have been late as much.

Michael Jackson's Anti-Gravity Shoes

In honor of the great Michael Jackson, we present the Gloved One's Anti-Gravity shoes. Remember how we all were caught wondering how he and leaned forward 45 degrees during his Smooth Criminal video.

He actually invented the move and then went on to patent it as "Method and Means for creating Anti-Gravity illusion".

crocs

Crocs are plastic clogs that look somewhat like an industrialized version of the sandal. It has been one of the more recent fads and still has its popularity. The thing about them is that you probably either love them or hate them.

Unlike most footwear, you will see Crocs on men and women of all ages, and I mean all ages. They have them for kids too, I should know, my nephew has a pair.

Another innovation later, created by a mother with her children, called Jibbitz, was the idea of placing adrornments on the holes of their Crocs. These were often cute characters or items that allowed you to customize your own pair.

Sonny Crockett's Shoes

Remember these... espadrilles as they are known, are shoes that are made from cloth. They origins are from Spain and often used as Summer footwear. I still see some women use this and they say they do so because they are comfortable and cool. I've also noticed that a lot of them
aren't the single colored ones. Many are actually very bright and stylishly decorated.

Espadrilles owe its 15-minutes of fame back in the 1980's when they were worn on the hit show Miami Vice by Don Johnson, a.k.a. Sonny Crockett.

But they soon came back to being another comfortable pair of footwear by the end of the 80s.

Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars

Being born in the 70's I remember one of my first pair of sneakers as a very young boy was the Chuck Taylors. The were the bomb and I have low cut version of I use today.

I remember loving them as you could run around and play with your friends without breaking them, as I did many of my leather shoes back then, and yet look cool and hip.

A few footnotes:
- Chucks are the most successful selling shoe in history, with over 750 million pairs sold. Wow!
- They were designed by Converse in 1917 and became the shoe of choice of Charles 'Chuck' Taylor, a high school basketball star in Indiana. He later joined Converse and the rest is history.