Digging through those Supreme shoes, I took a look at those shox they did and didn’t even give them a glance.
I’m a huge fan of the original 3 shox ever released - the R4, BB4, and to a lesser extent the XT6. I know the ‘monster’ was a popular shoe, but I still don’t think anything they’ve released comes even close to the original lineup.
BB4’s - the commercial was so catchy, so much so that we made a shard card around a sample pair we cut up. BB4’s are STILL, to this day, my #1 choice of basketball shoe.
R4’s - The first time I saw them in person was in Zurich, Switzerland, as a recent college grad in pretty deep credit card debt. Regardless, I needed a new pair of shoes and went on the hunt for some R4’s. No pairs in Switzerland, but I found some of those zip up shox (RX zip) a few days later at a Niketalk in Berlin and copped those instead.
Never owned the XT6’s but I think they would do well as a retro.
The R4 isn’t the most comfortable of shoes, but the sleek profile, semi slimmed down toebox, posite material and toe drop made them perfect for my slightly European sensibilities of the time. I’ve owned probably 30 pairs over the years but this is the one I’ve kept…a pair you don’t come across often.
Anyway…just a little personal background on an often-hated-on shoe…I get in my feels when I see folks hate on the originals…
Hard to believe this silhouette is 24 years old 😭