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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November 12, 2013 1:24 pm
what about aeon shoes?
November 12, 2013 1:49 pm
I would still rather wear and skate chubby golden era shoes/d3 looking puffs and I would rather want to see than nowadays “tennis shoe” looking craps/thin vulcanised shoes.
November 13, 2013 8:03 pm
board feel brahhhhhhhhh
November 16, 2013 5:09 pm
You’re typical nowadays product that falls for the marketing tricks. I prefer and skate thicker cupsoles every day, but I have skated and tried thinner and the thinnest vulcanised soles, so I have a detached view on both of them and I have the rights to express my conclusion that this better “board feel” is all bullshit, that is only a reason or excuse for you to consider to buy ones with “better board feel”, even though you could throw them in a garbage in about two weeks. Yeah, the only slight difference you can feel when you are cruising, but when you skate, do tricks and land stuff, in cupsoles your feet stays more stable and the board feel is more than enough. As I have stated in previous articles, I could skate D3’s on a 7.5 board and it would be all good. Don’t continue this “board feel” bullshit that seems like everyone fell for. If it was so good, better and superior in this board feel, we wouldn’t have developed and evolved from the 70’s Vans surf/tennis shoes.
November 1, 2014 3:49 pm
Relax dude. Better board feel is bullshit ? Here’s a metaphor for you . Dude you feel a Vagina better In 4 condoms or none ? …. None is thinner so the answer is none. Thick shoes equal less board feel , how is that bull shit.? Thick shoes equal yes more protection . You need to relax dude .
December 27, 2013 6:43 pm
Did you even read that sentence you typed? If I really fuck up my brain, I get the gist of it, but please for the love of god, learn how to write English.
December 26, 2015 4:23 am
Fuck you. I skated in DC’s for 2 years. I then switched to Emerica’s I had better control with the thinner shoe. Its just fucking science. And personal Preference.
November 12, 2013 3:29 pm
airwalk’s “not the same” was a great shoe!
November 12, 2013 3:59 pm
i keep hearing lots of love for the NTS!
i would say the same about the y2k Converse line — great shoes, real fuckin’ ugly
April 17, 2014 5:50 pm
I had a pair of NTS.
May 28, 2015 11:15 pm
Definitely, NTS was a good shoe,
October 10, 2023 8:17 pm
I loved my NTS shoes. I found this article looki h to find out if they are out there somewhere