So… a funny thing happened on the way to the manufacturer.
Good news:
1. The shoes arrived!
2. The shoes were packaged correctly!
3. The shoes look freaking incredible!
4. The choice to use premium suede and canvas was perfect!
Bad news:
1. I was missing one size 9 Shadow/Cloud-Black-Ocha
2. The shoe runs a size small… (insert sadness and frustration, cue the lonely music, put on some Kenny G “Songbird” and crawl into a corner with that one President Obama tear on my cheek… )
3. Why should I feel so bad when Nike and Adidas and every shoe company makes shoes that are sized incorrectly? Easy answer, I freaking can’t afford to make a mistake. More important, this is by far the best damn shoe I’ve ever made…EVER!!!!!!!! and I can’t even fucking wear them. Talk about some frustrating shit.
The Positive: This is simply the dopest shoe I could have made at this point. As far as runners/trainers go, the quality is on par with any brand on the market which means the pricing will be justified.
The Negative: I wanted my Ralph Ellison tribute shoe to be something that I could rock with my Out of Print “Invisible Man” tee. Since I can’t do that, I no longer want to give this shoe the name Ellison. I will instead name it the ARCH TR114 . Why 114? The Fighting Aardvarks. My first squadron in the Navy was VF 114. We flew F-14s.
This is a picture of my squadron and our showbird on the inaugaral cruise for the USS Abraham Lincoln CVN-72. While you can’t see the colors that well, there is an orange/caramel color on the side and the Aardvark was the same color. During this first cruise we actually rescued people from Mt. Pinatubo’s volcanic eruption before heading over to participate in Operation Desert Storm. I was a kid who had to grow up fast. These were the years that shaped me. VF-114 made me into who I would become. After this cruise the squadron was decommissioned as the Navy began downsizing F-14 Squadrons. The F-18 was the new jet and it was lighter, faster, smaller and most important it wasn’t designed around a missile system like the F-14. We were moved to a new squadron, but that first cruise is a part of my DNA. The ARCH Trainer 114 is the name of the shoe. I will be posting pics soon and video updates as I prepare the shoe for it’s launch.
Shoe Name:
ARCH TR114
Colors:
Shadow/Cloud Grey-Black-Ocha
Caramel/Cloud Grey-Black-Ocha (Peanut Butter) Additional shoestrings
Sizing:
The shoe runs 1 size small. A size 12 would order a size 13.
Sizes:
8-13 (really sizes 7-12)
