Converse Evo's

A new shoe just released on the Weapon Evo tool. I originally designed this shoe for someone… but I’m glad we were able to get it out.

more details:

A preview of some of the follow up products:

Those are good looking shoes YO, great design, especially red ones; those are cool. Is there any tutorial how to model shoe in solidworks or whatever software is used for footwear designing.

Damn, you guys had to name the Red and Black ones “The Sick”… frustrating…trying to think of another term to describe those… nah, they’re just sick
Definitely second what someone posted in the comments on Slam, Converse has really been hitting the mark recently. Awesome work Yo and everyone else over there.

Thanks guys_

Counter Kicks did a nice write up:
http://counterkicks.com/2010/06/10/converse-sicks-blackred-white/

And Sole Collector has a bunch of the colorways:
http://solecollector.com/live/all/converse-sicks-additional-colorways/

Brian Kutsch designed the final production tooling and I did the upper. Both developed by our long time collaborator Alex Alpert who is a bit like the left side of my brain on these projects. Awesome teams lead to good product… the original tooling I designed was crazy! Wish that had made it, but I’m sure it will influence future offerings… I’ll miss working with Alex and Brian! Both super talented good dudes.

I love that we got a “Carolina Blue” colorway into production. Some of you real hoops students might remember that a certain BBall mega legend went to UNC, and while he was there, he always wore Converse… we really liked embedding little clues into our products like that, and the “Sicks” name is in fact actually a clue to a much bigger internal story, that some of you might be able to guess. I actually came up with the name, and internally people loved the double meaning… I can’t believe that made it to production to tell you the truth! I’d love to see if someone could guess the real meaning.




<<< Be sure to check out the previous page with more colorways!
http://boards.core77.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=19282&start=30#p151205

These were some of the archive models I was studying when designing these. We tried to break down the formal visual language without referencing an individual shoe per se. These were from the days that Converse sponsored people like Axl Rose from Guns and Roses, and Zack from Saved By The Bell. Hilarious Converse pop culture references that we were interested in as this was the time when BBall shoes were at their peak of popularity on and off the court… also, none of this is a clue to that double meaning for the “Sicks” name by the way…



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Nice job. the Sicks certainly keep the brand DNA and are one of the nicest “neu-retro” jobs I’ve seen in a while. Very true to the spirit.

…what are your referring to on the naming thing?

R

PS. on that last pic, is the double eyelet (x2) at the top of the eyestay supposed to be an “88” or am I just reading something into it that isn’t there? If it was on purpose, that’s pretty cool.

Thanks Richard. I’m sure someone will figure out the name clue… I don’t think that was intended to be an 88, in fact it looks like the same eyelet as on the Air Max 1, which means they were probably using the same vendors…

First of all, great stuff Michael. I really like the black/red colorway. The cutout shapes and details around the heel are really nice.

I figured I would take a stab at “The Sicks” double meaning… is it supposed to be a play on words, also meaning “The Six” ? If you say both spellings without looking at them, they sound exactly the same. If this is correct, what does “The Six” refer to? I was looking at those archival models you posted, and noticed that there are 6 of them total. Does “The Six” refer to these 6 archival models you studied while designing this new shoe?

After thinking about this one a little bit more while on my morning run, I would like to revise my previous answer :slight_smile:

I think I am correct with the “Sicks” / “Six” double meaning… but after some more thought-- was this supposed to be the Wade 6? I think this makes more sense, referring to your previous post when you mentioned the big internal story and that you were surprised the “Sicks” name actually made it to production.

Getting warmer Phil! It does have to do with the number 6, but not the number of reference shoes… I didn’t pick up on that actually. Here is another reference pic from the Converse CONSquest (what a name) I loved the louvered logo which influenced the selection of a courdoroyed leather on the black red white colorway. If you zoom in on the pic you can see that detail.

What about my Wade 6 guess in my post above? (previous post directly before yours)…

Cool logo detail you pointed out, didn’t notice that before.

Sorry, I missed that…You got it. :wink:

One of the most fun things about footwear is just how much it gets around the web. People like shoes man! There is always a variety of positive and negative commentary, just like on here, but it is cool to see people geeking out on product just in general.

http://solecollector.com/live/all/converse-sicks-additional-colorways/
http://solecollector.com/live/all/converse-sicks-black-red-white/
http://www.bkrw.com/news/converse-sicks.html
http://www.sneakerfreaker.com/sneaker-releases/Converse-Sicks-And-Star-Player-Evo-Preview/
http://counterkicks.com/2010/06/10/converse-sicks-blackred-white/
http://www.nicekicks.com/2010/06/converse-sicks/

Neatened the inspirations up into a nicer image

This is the last BBall shoe I worked on… might be a few other products in the pipeline, but the last of the performance stuff from my Converse days. Just hit http://www.converse.com/#/products/collections/basketball

Hmmm…needs more Ballz.

The forward leaning cuff on the Star Player EVO is cool. I also like the Poorman Weapon, the olive color. Did you do those too?

If it had any more balls it would be a sporting goods store… :wink:

No not personally, though they were done by guys that used to be on my team. The Star Player EVO was done by Brian Kutsch, who also did the final tooling design in the above Sicks. The Poorman Weapon was done by Damion Silver. It was a good team.

A new color/material way surfaced of the Converse Sicks. This version was spun by Brian Kutsch right as I was leaving.

http://solemovement.com/converse/converse-sicks-mid/
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Very cool thread Michael!!

I did a poster using the Weapon years ago.