Sneaker brands have long attempted to celebrate the rich, but underemphasized legacy of Blacks in America. I’ve always thought that turning a history that isn’t taught enough to Americans into a product was problematic. After a giant misstep by adidas in 2019, the Three Stripes stepped away from promoting a collection. This year they have…
Are collections acknowledging Black History Month, commodification or celebration? Nike and adidas have both gotten these collections wrong and smaller brands are now taking on the process of bringing attention to the rich contributions made by Blacks in America. Delivering a collection is complex. Everyone won’t like what’s being done, and this makes the task…
Register for the Envision Mentorship Program: https://pensole.com/master-class/the-envision-mentorship-program/ The Envision Mentorship program seeks to connect the creative youth with a life enhancing opportunity by connecting them to industry visionaries in the fields of design, journalism, music, media, and marketing. Qualified candidates for the Envision Mentorship program will receive career guidance and exclusive product to prepare them…
Under Armour’s upcoming Black History Month delivery is the best concept I’ve seen from any brand attempting to celebrate the rich heritage of Blacks in America. The brand collaborated with photographer Devin Allen. Devin has been the camera behind some of the best photographs taken for Under Armour. Devin Allen is also in line as…
Merrell is known as an outdoor company. The company also has an assortment shoes for a range of industries. One of their best shoes is a model created especially for the service industry, The 1Six8 Mesh AC+ Pro. I ordered two pair of the shoes for family members who finally returned to work after the…
I’ve been excited about the UA HOVR Fat Tire for a while, but I’ve always written about the missteps in marketing at Under Armour. When I sat down to do the unboxing for this shoe, I was excited about where Under Armour could be headed as a brand. When I received the shoes, I was…
New Balance recently garnered awards from various sneaker outlets as the brand of 2020. The recent accolades were well deserved, but to only look at last year’s 327 success, fails to acknowledge the investment in innovation and design the company has put forth to improve their lifestyle kicks. Articles in this video: New Balance 57/40:…
DC Shoes saw a rocketship of website traffic from October through the holiday season. Vans remained consistent with their growth to 11 million visits per month with interactive digital events and videos. Both companies did this by creating engaging homepages that educated and entertained the visitors discovering their site via search. https://www.vans.com/ http://www.dcshoes.com/
This year I’ve written about a number of independent brands. These brands do a great job of reminding us they are constantly fighting to gain attention. Here are the links to the brands in this video: COMUNITYmade https://www.comunitymade.com/collections/trending-now/products/womens-molino?variant=32956244951124 Brandblack https://brandblack.com/collections/new-arrivals-women/products/womens-capo-shearling-natural Clearweather https://clearweatherbrand.com/ CASBIA https://www.casbia.com/ CLAE https://www.clae.com/products/bradley-high-welt-black-water-repellent-leather Ewing Athletics https://shop.ewingathletics.com/ NinetyNine Products https://ninetynineproducts.com/
Check out my Books: https://arch-usa.com/product-category/books/ I’ve been writing about basketball and performance footwear sales for years. Recently, I’ve begun to move from inside of my sneaker culture box to examine footwear with a wider scope. I once operated one of the best performing Seller Central Marketplace stores on Amazon. The store had a perfect 5…
Did you know there is another color of the Allbirds Staple Dasher on the way? Probably not. It would be great to ask this question to sneaker culture, because I’m almost positive they aren’t aware either. The collab seems to be stuck inside of a room created by the two collaborators. If a sneaker collab…
ecco®︎ ZipFlex Warm Grey pictured above I’m just beginning to learn about ecco®︎ and maybe my enthusiasm should be tempered considering the brand’s sales have been decreasing in the Americas, but I love brands that have the ability to move a product from conception to the consumer, in house. Merrell is a company that can…
Buy my books on the sneaker industry: https://amzn.to/3lD82gb ComplexCon was not able to take place in the physical this year, but the media company found an interesting way to deliver an experience to their audience. A lot like the Travis Scott Fortnite concert, where you could purchase items inside of the digital environment, ComplexLand created…
Buy my books on the sneaker industry: https://amzn.to/3lD82gb https://www.allbirds.com/pages/staple I’ve written extensively about Allbirds. The company is vocal about the work they do to create products that are sustainable. They aren’t really a brand that enters the realm of sneaker culture, but with this collab it seems they want to find a way to reach…
Buy my books on the sneaker industry: https://amzn.to/3lD82gb I wrote a post on basketball activations in February 2020: J.Cole x Puma and Dame & Pusha T x adidas | Why Choose Basketball Activations When Performance is Down? In that post, I wanted to look at the new campaigns by Puma and adidas and raise the…
You may not have heard of OLLO, and it’s probably hard to fathom that this is the company that will have the breakout year in 2021, but let me explain. Niche sports are no longer hindered by the historic issues of finding access to the consumer via television. YouTube is equally as powerful as a…
Sonja Henning, former WNBA player and current Nike VP, NA League Partnerships, on providing dynamic work experiences for retired WNBA players. Source: Nike x WNBA Women in Nike (WIN) Program I posted an article on Nike’s collaboration with Ambush stating that the Swoosh should be doing more with the WNBA. After waiting for years for…
Buy my books on the sneaker industry: https://amzn.to/3lD82gb The Swoosh has once again collaborated with Ambush. I’ve written extensively about the inconsistency of collaborations for brands. In some instances you can get a collab with a designer that sells out immediately. In other instances you get a collab that ends up in the Nike Clearance…
Buy my books on the sneaker industry: https://amzn.to/3lD82gb New Balance x Pensole on FootLocker: https://www.footlocker.com/category/collection/new-balance-pensole.html?fbclid=IwAR1FDxTx0oIIvvqwHUsDu4dDwGYTPHyEK3I3A8vnSnLkr5LDnfWc58fxc-U New Balance x Pensole Video on NB YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1UEAU9v6pg I’ve been writing about the relationship between Pensole and FootLocker since I learned that they placed seed money into the Instructional Design Academy. I’ve long discussed that retail will have to…
(FILA North America) – December 1, 2020 – FILA has launched “Project 7,” a new, limited-edition collection represented by BTS, global brand ambassadors for FILA. The capsule consists of apparel,. Source: FILA Launches “Project 7” Collection Exclusively on FILA.com I have to be honest, I like BTS. I didn’t know anything about the Korean Group until…
After connecting with Adam Port I attempted to do as much as possible to shed a light on the talented artist. It makes me feel really good that smaller channels on YouTube are reaching out and interviewing him. For a person with such a storied artistic career you would think he wouldn’t have a problem…
I wanted to take the time to ask you to visit a few smaller sneaker companies for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Here are the companies in this video: NinetyNine Products: https://goodthin.gs/collections/ninetynineproducts COMUNITYmade: https://www.comunitymade.com/ CLAE: https://www.clae.com/pages/bradley-cactus-leather Clearweather: https://clearweatherbrand.com/collections/black-friday-1 Brandblack: https://brandblack.com/ Rockdeep: https://www.rockdeep.com/ You can support ARCH by subscribing to YouTube and visiting the website. https://youtube.com/archbyccb
