We asked you to fill in the gaps from our last rundown of skateboarding’s more regrettable footwear concepts, and you came through bigtime. We took your suggestions, spent some time scouring the Google and found 7 more nightmares we only kind of want to relive. Maybe I’m beating a dead horse at this point …but seriously, who did these guys have designing shoes? Did they keep their jobs long?

1. Globe Chet Thomas CT-IV

These were a glaring omission from the first list (maybe in part because I always wanted a pair when they were around but had to settle for Converse). Chet Thomas famously said he’d skate until he couldn’t walk, so maybe he was just hedging his bets by putting as many protective elements as he possibly could into this one shoe design?

2. Nike SB “Golf” Dunk Low

More proof that you could take a shit, slap a “Nike SB” logo on it, call it limited, and suckers will rush to max their credit cards out. Are you fucking kidding me, Nike? More importantly, are you fucking kidding me, people who bought these?

3. Airwalk NTS

Remember when every skate shoe had a rubber toecap, so you could do all the of varial flips you wanted, knowing you’d wear through the sole of your shoes before you ever made it past the toecap? (But do you really remember how awful they were to skate for the first day or two, and then again after the first week or so, once your regular wear patterns got smooth and you didn’t have any control?)

4. Converse Chany Jeanguenin Pro-1

The line of skate shoes Converse tried shortly before being bought by Nike (the more you know) are hard for me to talk about now. I loved these when they were out — nobody was skating in them and I had been wearing Chucks since I was a little kid. But now, it’s like finding your sixth grade crush on Facebook. You remember the feelings, you know they were real once, but now, oh dear god why?

5. DC ProSpec 2

Well, some people were being awesome on the internet and pointed out that one of our DCs from the first article was designed for racecar driving because Ken Block is a cool bro. Fine, whatever. But what do you say to the subsequent models, complete with a seemingly skate-designed sole and skate-friendly stitching and paneling? Not to mention this shoe looks like Nickelodeon threw up my childhood on someone’s pair of Skytops.

6. Vans Pro Series

The trend stars didn’t align for Vans for a while. Vans sold simple, surf inspired shoes so you could feel and grip your board. Too bad they lasted about an hour once you started doing varial heels and hardflips and made your feet explode if you fell from a high place to a lower place. When they tried to catch up with the technical stormtrooper-boot fad… well, this is what happens when you do a bad job imitating something that just wasn’t that great to begin with.

7. eS Eclipse

This is what happens when the D3 becomes the most popular skate shoe of all time. You have eS, already infamous for making plastic moon boots from a dystopian marshmallow-shaped future, trying to copy/”improve” it. An eclipse is when the sun blocks the moon or vice versa. You’re never supposed to look directly at a solar eclipse. Maybe they were warning us? Maybe, deep down, they knew — don’t look at this. It’s the alien xenomorph wrapped in a tire. It’s an eclipse. Don’t look. It’ll damage your eyes forever.

If you missed it, check out the first 7 most terrifying skate shoes.

Words: Ian Graham
To complain about all shoes he forgot, follow him on Instagram.
Original Illustration: Michael Giurato
Shoe photos courtesy of Skately
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