The same goes for the Nike Air Force 1, again a shoe way ahead of its time. It was the first Nike shoe that incorporated the Air technology. In 1982, it revolutionised the basketball game and proved that functional can also be attractive, and even fashionable. Millions have been sold and even today, it is a bestseller.

Both designs proved to have passed the test of time. That is why some companies copied them over the years. For example, Japanese brands like Visvim and A Bathing Ape. The thing is they did not hide the fact their shoes were copies. And how could they? They only changed like 3% of the design.

Were these Japanese designers lazy the day they gave birth to both copies? I personally would not agree. They recognized an evergreen when they saw one and upgraded it. They enriched the shoes with the use of high quality materials so the consumer got a classic design with a more luxurious, contemporary finish. An added value was created upon the original in celebration of the original. In both cases, the copies were a big success due to this eye for detail and limited distribution.

Last year another brand introduced itself on the market named Gourmet. They presented a couple of silhouettes that I had seen before. Yes, they copied them, but not exact copies. They copied the signature lines of classic basketball silhouettes and put them on top of sleeker tennis shoe like soles. Gourmet told the press they were inspired by old basketball shoes. Hell yeah, Air Jordans to be exact. And Jordan Brand was not happy, at all.

This made me ask myself since they did not make exact copies: why copy signature elements instead of creating all new, original silhouettes? You could say they were - again - lazy using classic Air Jordans silhouettes to create a new line of sneakers and market them as such. But were they really?

Their copy-paste strategy fuelled the fire at Jordan Brand and Nike, because in a way their designs were molested. So of course, Gourmet got sued. And maybe, just maybe, that was the type of reaction Gourmet was hoping for. Because any kind of publicity is publicity nonetheless, even if it is negative. Hell, I am even writing about them now. Smart move, Gourmet. Slightly lazy, but oh so smart.

Many moons ago, founder Jennifer Liu stumbled upon a great idea: She fashioned an evening bag from a cuddly toy bought at a gift shop, which went down a storm. She started manufacturing her Fuzzy Nation designs in a trailer in Lafayette, New Jersey, in 2006.

Two years on, having joined forces with Colleen Brennan, the company has grown to become a worldwide supplier of, erm, petsessories? Large enough in fact, to have caught the eye of Roberto Cavalli who used them on his catwalk show in Cannes.

So, Want a puppy for Christmas? Now you can…The European market is currently being supplied by ‘Le Petit Tom’.

Click http://www.lepetittom.nl/index1.html for a look at their collection.

Wholesale orders can be placed directly at http://www.fuzzynation.com/

Two months later Kanye decided to unveil his mystery Nike shoe, the “Air Yeezy”. No additional info was released back then except for more detailed pictures of a new colorway. After this moment of clarity, more pictures popped up on the web of Kanye rocking more new colorways of the Air Yeezy. He also wore them more publicly like on television appearances and
in music videos. The hype was in full effect.

                                                  

Due to the lack of information being released, people started to analyse the sources of inspiration of the Air Yeezy. As you can see in the picture below, 3 important design influences have been used, presumably: the Ato Cow Hide Boot, the Bape Roadsta and maybe most importantly the Air Jordan III.

Why most importantly? Well, it was total overkill at the time with tons of Air Yeezy contact moments in the media. People started to get a little impatient. Nobody knew exactly when the shoes were going to be released. That also made some Chinese people impatient. So they started to do what they do best: copy the original and create fakes. And since they knew nothing more about the original Air Yeezy than you and me, they used the same inspiration chart to produce their copy. That’s why on the sole of a fake Air Yeezy it reads Jordan because they literally used the sole of the Air Jordan III.