Tennis! Shoes! Well, tennis mostly. And Roger Federer.

I know I should be all atwitter at the coming New York Fashion Week, but I’ve been a little bit distracted by the US Open. The players are cute (James Blake, anyone?) and impossibly fit, the women are fierce (go, girls!), and above all, the tennis is absolutely fantastic.

One of my favorites is, of course, everybody’s favorite, the unbeatable Federer. If you saw last night’s game in which he defeated Feliciano Lopez to advance to the quarterfinals, you might have remarked the all-black ensemble, which actually turns out to be created especially for him.

Well, Nike created the outfit, of course, and this is it:

This is the all-black version of the Nike Vapor IV, a limited production of only 50 pairs on-site in NYC only. However, Roger’s shoes are unique: they sport 3 red and white Swiss flag logos, each one designated with an ’04, ’05, and ’06 for his last 3 consecutive US Open wins. Additional details include an embossed ‘RF’ logo on the heel and tongue. You may remark the same logo detailing on the polo.

Which begs the question: if he wins this one, too, will they make a 4-flag logo-embossed shoe for him? Oh, I think so.

As about the black shorts, the NYTimes described as them ‘as if they had been cut from a tuxedo above the knee.’

Federer is a bit of a clotheshorse himself, attending fashion shows under the seasoned wing of Anna Wintour, and favoring Prada among designers (he reportedly claimed he did not know a lot about American designers…yet). When NY Magazine asked Miss Anna about her favorite tennis couture this season, she replied, ‘Anything that Roger wears.’ Tennis afficionados, take note!

If you want the same shoes as Federer–they’re available for $110 at Nike.com–though not in black!

Ok, back to the game now!

Anti-Brand? Right this Way to Blackspot

I don’t know about you, but much as I do love some designer styles, I just can’t stand seeing people loudly advertising their purchase’s brand for all to see. Fendi Fendi Fendi! Gucci Gucci Gucci! And the mac daddy of blatant, rub-it-in-your-face brand stamping, Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton!

So imagine my pleased delight to find that Adbusters (an excellent Canadian-based not-for-profit magazine and all around cultural enterprise dedicated to changing the way we all think about the media’s influence on us) has released a line of non-branded shoes!

They’re called Blackspot, and you can choose between a low-top sneaker ($75CDN) a la classic Chucks or an ankle boot ($99CDN), both of which were designed by John Fluevog.

Here’s the site for info about Blackspot shoes, and the ethos behind the idea.

And what do they look like?

Well, the low-top is pretty much your classic Converse-looking black sneaker (no color choice here).

And the boot is a very Fluevog-looking stomper, which I love.

Now go out there and kick some brainwashing corporation ass!

Return from the Great Beyond and 80%20

Hello, dear Shoeblog readers!  Long time no see, eh?

I’ve been away and am finally returned and caught up on the last few weeks of Shoeblog and Shoeforum happenings.  And just in time for New York Fashion Week!  Your loyal Shoebloggers will be bringing you thoughts and reviews about the Fashion Week shows, so make sure to stay tuned throughout the rest of this week.

It’s been a bit of a shock to the system coming back to New York from the middle of the woods where I was off on vacation.  Not only are there no shoe stores up there, there was only dial-up internet.  It was a complete vacation from shoes.

Well… that’s not quite true.  You didn’t think I could give up shoes full-stop for several weeks at a go, did you?

Even on a woodland vacation, I managed to not only discover a great new shoe store (JL Coombs, where they stock all kinds of brands that we here at Shoeblog love… Mephisto, Ecco, Ugg, Merrell, TSUBO, etc), but I also snapped up a pair of kicks I’d been coveting online for quite some time.

I’m talking about the 80%20 Jody slip-ons (I got the blue cherry blossom), which were marked down from $65 to merely $35.

If you want a pair of these for yourself, they’re $60 at Shoes.com, but there are often great deals at that site, so play your cards right and you could have these cuties, too.  They come in lots of colors and designs, and I’ve already been wearing them all over the place.