Caught these @pharrell x @adidas Human Made 'Sichonas' the other day and wondered why I had slept on them for so long...I did a bit of googling to find me some cheap pairs and briefly came across the storytelling behind these...which took a bit of digging. Apparently they have something to do with "Pharrell's 'friendship' with members of the Native American Dakota tribe, and the model name "Sichona" roughly translates to 'Barefoot,' borrowing from the indigenous phrase 'connecting to the earth'." They released in November of 2021... ~~~~~~ First - the shoes: I love 'em. I just really like sock runners and am a fan when the shape is on point and my foot feels relatively free (unlike with most basketball shoes). I know there are a lot of shoes that claim the 'barefoot' feel, but most of them don't really deliver, and that's because they have these massive chunky/cushioned soles (which definitely have their place). These actually remind me a bit of the Yeezy 450, but this was a *much* better execution of the idea. Second - why is Adidas so bad at storytelling? This could have been a GREAT story, but once again, all I can find on these is reallly just info about where to buy them - I had to *dig* for the story behind them. Have they still not figured out how Nike gets us to buy into these ridiculous stories again and again and again? People LOVE the stories that Nike puts out (no matter how repetitive they are), yet Adidas can't even manage to push their story through their own media channels? Nike does well with the N7 line - is there a reason that they couldn't have given these some more love? ~~~~ I dunno...I'm still trying to figure out these first releases from Adidas keep flying under the radar of someone even as maniacal about this stuff as I am. Like...if even the MANIACS are missing your releases, what's going on with the general population of casual sneaker-buyers?