This news comes from Rob Brink via YouWillSoon. I first saw Nike GTS's in the spring of 1994 at the first Slam City Jam contest.
This was a huge year in the changing of the guard for skateboard shoe companies. Airwalk was pretty much falling off, Duffs was just getting established, Etnies was already a few years into their North American invasion and DC didn't exist yet. During the vert contest, Danny Way was wearing tan/white Etnies Raps (even though he was sponsored by Airwalk at the time) and Sal Barbier, who was MCing, joked about "loaning" them to him because all of his Airwalks were stolen.
Back to the GTS's... all the Vancouver locals were skating them in navy with white vulc and gum sole, no visible swoosh, just a standard sized navy stitched swoosh camouflaged on the side. I was told they were only available at the Metrotown Nike store so I went out there only to find they were sold out in my size. I ended up getting a pair at some random shop over the summer. I'm not even sure what the original target sport was for these shoes. Regardless, they were great for skating, simple, easy on the eyes and the feet. The problem for me was they were never easy to find.
Fourteen years later, Etnies has released their own version of this shoe, called the ETNS. I'll definitely be getting a pair.
3 comments:
Those were huge in Philly back then too. Payless had an identical copy that me and alot of others rocked. No swoosh but not many people noticed and they were like 15 bucks. Funny now that Payless owns Airwalk.
@TP We're not owned by Payless. The company that ownes Payless (Collective Brands International) owns us, but we never see 'em. We are autonomous, and they don't really have a say in our product. They bought majority share of us for distribution purposes, so essentially, as far as what actually counts, Airwalk is owned by theCollective.
Nothing wrong with good looking logoless $15 skate shoes that are gonna get trashed fast.
Booya! Airwalk posted on my blog. wtf!
Just read about an Airwalk Jeffstaple collaboration. Airwalks from the late 80's and early 90's fetch a pretty penny on ebay these days.
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