Sneakers from the 1979 movie The Warriors

Last month I posted on legendary rock n roll hall of fame singer Neil Young as a 4 stripe man. Here's another piece of 4 stripe bootleg sneaker history. In the opening credits of the 1979 cult classic movie 'The Warriors' one of the gangs is wearing some 4 stripe sneakers at the 2:56 marker in this video…

These were likely Kmart Trax or Sears The Winner II brand but could also be Bob Wolf brand sneakers.

Going through the rest of the movie most of the sneakers shown are Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars. Most of The Orphans are wearing Converse and Puma but one guys in their gang has a pair of bootleg sneakers that look like a hollowed out Puma logo…

These sneakers might be either Kobe brand or Mark 5 brand.

Outside of that there are a bunch of other fast paced scenes that make it difficult to ID the sneakers…

From the still photo shoot images it looks like the Baseball Furies were wearing some yellow and black LD-1000 model runners.

Based on this photo it looks like the costume designer spray painted over the yellow nylon and Nike swoosh logo on the sides of the old yellow and orange LD-1000s.

For more info on The Warriors I’d suggest to pop over to the very awesome website Warriorsmovie.co.uk.

One last disclaimer… all movie stills and video clips displayed above are done so through “fair use” for blogging and journalistic purposes and are copyright of their respective copyright holders.

Nike late 1970s & early 1980s

Putting up a quick post is to see if anyone reading this knows anyone who worked at Nike and was involved in the decision making process in the late 1970s or early 1980s. The more specific range would be around 1977 - 1983ish. I'm trying to track down information on a really rare piece of Nike history and might need an assist. If you do and can share their contact information please drop me a line over on the contact page. Thanks.

Ultra Rare Nike Air Jordan Auction fetches $615,000 at Christie's

From BBC News

“A pair of trainers worn by basketball legend Michael Jordan fetched $615,000 (£460,000) at an online auction on Thursday. The Nike Air Jordan 1 High sneakers, described as the "rarest of the rare", were used by the Chicago Bulls star in an exhibition game in 1985. “

Well done Christie’s.

Four Stripe Legends: Neil Young

I saw a conversation on twitter discussing what model of sneakers Neil Young is wearing on the back cover of the "Rust Never Sleeps" album art. It's hard to tell what brand this is because of the photography and surplus of 4 stripe sneaker brands from around that time. Some of the 4 stripe sneaker brands included Kinney NBA, Sears The Winner, Kmart Trax, Lacrosse, Jet brand, Bob Wolf and many, many more.

Vintage sneaker brand logos, Volume 1 + 1

Vintage sneaker logos + 1, Volume 1. Shout out to thepassionhifi for the free soundcloud beats. We missed a whole lotta brands but were trying to keep this under a minute. Stay tuned for Volume II.

Supreme

We usually stick with sneakers but we’re going off script with this one... check out this awesome little old lady on the news rocking her supreme hat and face mask. 👵 😷 👊 Glad to see streetwear embraced by the elders.

Shout out to Shelly for passing this photo along and asefacevintage for ID’ing the woman in the photo as Lili Hayes!

UPDATE:

Our original post on Instagram got re-grammed a bunch of times which then spurred this awesome artwork by the folks bringing you #Brightmares over @alexpardee. Check it out!

Artwork image credit to AlexPardee.com

New Balance MS327LAA retro runners

A couple of days ago we posted a 1982 ad for NB. Today I wanted to share a post that our buddy @trainer.spotting spotted out in the wild and passed along recently. Thanks man.

New Balance sneaker designer @charlottealee found design inspiration based on some of the NB models in the vintage 355 and SuperComp ads we've posted here on the blog to come up with a whole new hybrid model of New Balance runner called the MS327LAA. Check em out 👇

BEST OF THE WORST SNEAKER BOOTLEGS: DY BRAND 70s 80s FAKE VINTAGE NIKE

OCTOBER 2021 UPDATE: We had a tip come in on Instagram about these sneakers and they said that these are DY brand, not DJ brand so I am updating this blog post title. The 登云 characters on the label translate to deng-yun and apparently Dengyun brand is the number one leather shoe factory in Shanghai.

The last time we did a 'Best of the Bootlegs' post we were looking at the strange case of 'abibas' brand sneakers. Today we've got a great pair of bootleg 1970s or early 80s fake vintage Nike sneakers by a Chinese brand called DJ. These one of a kind old school gems with swoosh and stripe are over at @suitezero.archive who let us know about them over on Instagram.

All image credits above to @suitezero.archive on Instagram.

Jox runs again - vintage sneaker repair and restoration

This post is long overdue... we tried an experiment a few months ago to bring one of these vintage runners back to life with the help of our buddy across the pond @vintage_trainer_repairs68. These old school 40-something year old Jox sneakers seemed like a good candidate because the midsole foam was getting a little crispy and brittle on them. Thanks again to @vintage_trainer_repairs68 who did an awesome job bringing them back. I've included some photos of the process and they came out great. Thom McAn is no longer here, but Jox still lives on...

Before & After: Vintage sneaker restoration by @vintage_trainer_repairs68

Here’s a photo montage of the process below….

Kinney NBA Nike Le Village vintage sneakers

One of the things we dig about running the blog is hearing about the random vintage finds from all corners of the world. We recently heard from @cmmayse in Ohio about some new old stock vintage Kinney NBA Nike Le Village bootlegs that feature the original box, tissue paper and the upside down swoosh logo. The last I heard these sneakers had been sold but you can check them out below.

Sotheby's & Stadium Goods auction 100 of the World's Rarest Sneakers

UPDATE 7/23/2019: These vintage Nike waffle sneakers sold for $437,500 today.

If anyone has $80,000 - $160,000 laying around Stadium Goods just posted the 100 'Worlds Most Rarest' sneakers up for auction at Sotheby's. Part of this auction is the 1972 Olympic trials handmade Nike waffle racing flat moon shoes.

Stripe game strong 💪

We posted some 4 stripe Bob Wolf Super Pro sneakers the other day and were trying to figure out how many stripes are too many stripes so we did an art project to find out. This post is for some friends over at the ‘gram. It turns out that you can only fit 9 stripes on the side of a sneaker with adidas spacing.

Adidas let us know when you’re ready to bring out the Deffest 'Super stripe sport ultra max pro 9 stripe' edition, we’re ready to answer the 📞

The factory error upside down swoosh Air Jordans

I was searching around on the upside down swoosh AAU sneakers the other day and came across a Sneakers by Vice video on Andrea Canziani’s Nike factory error upside down swoosh Air Jordans. Those sneakers are now valued at around $143,000 which is nearly enough to buy a Maserati GranTurismo. 🤑

Introducing TheDeffest.com vintage sneaker blog

We done changed! The blog has re-branded and switched over to TheDeffest.com. It’s going to take a while for us to update all of the old posts and content but we hope y’all will make the move with us.

April Fools

APRIL FOOLS. (We got’cha)

Thanks to everyone who dropped by to check out Jordanified.com. 🔥👟👀 For those that missed it yesterday the April fools day prank concept was simple.... to turn every pair of available of Nike sneakers into "Jordans" for the 35th anniversary of Michael Jordan’s signing. The site is meant to be a satire on the never ending Jordan / Kobe / LeBron G.O.A.T. debate and we had a lot of fun making it.

To make it work we painstakingly re-colored every shoe in the Air Jordan 1 retro colorways using the NIKEiD tool, including LeBron, Kobe, Kyrie, Paul George and Kevin Durant's shoes, numbering them all 23 and renaming them as "Air." If you want to see our handy work the link above will take you there and as a side note if any of you want to buy the Jordanified "AIR" sneakers they are for sale at Nike's website. Shout out to Nike for the NikeID tool - this is a really awesome resource. No sneakers were harmed during the making of this prank and there can only be one G.O.A.T. 🐐

UPDATE: Jordanified.com no longer exists but you can still see the collection here on Pinterest.

Jordanified.com.... the G.O.A.T. debate is over

It looks like this Jordan / Kobe / Lebron “Greatest Of All Time” debate just got settled once and for all. If you have any friends that are Air Jordan fans you may want to have them check out the killer Nike sneaker collection over at Jordanified.com. These Air Cortez are kinda 🔥🔥🔥

Best of the Worst sneaker bootlegs: Abibas brand sneakers

I bet you've heard of Adidas... but have you heard of Abibas? Abi Bassler's namesake brand 🤣 According to some knowledgeable heads over at reddit these are available at the Hong Kong street market and also (supposedly) sold at the Hong Kong airport too.

😳

Shout out and credit to the crappyoffbrands reddit page for this image

Kobey's vintage sneaker swap meet June 1, 2019

Just wanted to put up a quick post for our Southern California peeps that they're holding a vintage sneaker flea market / swap meet in San Diego on June 1. I haven't been to this flea market yet but we might try to stop in to take a peek and see what they've got. Information is over at their website here or on Instagram at @kobeysswapmeet. Happy hunting.

Re-Freakin Branding the site

Quick announcement. We'll be rebranding the blog over the next few months. While this process means painstakingly re-working a ton of old posts, photos and content it'll be worth it in the long run. The blog content will remain the same and we're still working out the new name. Stay tuned.

Sears the Winner retro sneakers by Warehouse Company (Japan)

A couple of weeks ago I posted the Adidas and Converse side by side of the Sears the Winner kicks and mentioned the original sneakers from the early 70s sell for between $1500 - $2800 now. It turns out that a company in Japan called "Warehouse Company" is still putting the 4 strips Converse version of these out and they sell for about $100. This images are from a Rakuten store called "CLEVER WEB SHOP" but unfortunately their inventory is currently sold out. Shout out to @secondhand_nate for this passing along the info on Warehouse Company.