October 2021 UPDATE: This mystery has been solved. The W logo sneakers below are Pro-Wings brand. Thanks again to =VH= fan Allen Garber who figured this out.
I have received a ton of emails and messages asking about these Eddie Van Halen W logo sneakers in the photo by Neil Zlozower below so I figured I ought to put up a post about them. A few of us have looked into these sneakers and brand for awhile and we have had a couple of leads but no official confirmation.
Image Credit: Eddie Van Halen photo by Neil Zlozower. You can buy prints from Neil’s website here.
My first best guess was vintage Weider Sport Shoes. There is a pair of these up on eBay right now here
The W logo on those is not as pointy as Eddie Van Halen’s sneakers so we pretty much ruled them out. Next up we were trying to figure out if a factory was bootlegging Mizuno’s old M logo and flipped it upside down like Kinney shoes did with the Nike swoosh back in the day.
Mizuno MR1 - Image credit to tokyosports.com.hk
But that theory proved to be wrong as the logos are still a mismatch.
The latest development as we were told from a friend on Instagram is that these are 1970’s Kmart brand sneakers, possibly Trax brand. Kmart used a bunch of different profile logos back in the day which you can see here. We have not spotted the W logo yet but are trying to find an old ad for it. Once we find it we’ll update this post.
A couple of final thoughts - first off, big shout out to rock n’ roll photographer Neil Zlozower for capturing these iconic photos of Van Halen. You can buy Van Halen and other great rock band prints from Neil’s website here. 🤘🤘
Finally, RIP to rock n’ roll legend Eddie Van Halen. The man was a one-of-a-kind shredder and Van Halen made some killer albums together.