my bespoke air force 1's... well... sort of.

it's been a long, long wait for them, but yesterday my bespokes finally turned

up at whitfield towers.

peter at my reception, knew how important this was to me and wrote on the box

very special delivery !

so...

standard nike box. that's a shame. a special box would have been a nice gesture.

inside the box...

that's more like it.

each shoe is delivered in an individual dust bag

the bags are made from really nice soft cotton. almost velvety/

and here they are...

and again

what do you think ?

it's hard to tell from photos but in real life these do look and feel absolutely knockout.

unfortunately two parts of my design have not been carried out to my specification

and i'm waiting to hear back from nike about what happens next.

i'm afraid i'm going to have to send these bad boys back to new york

and have them re-made.

grrr !

let's get into the shoe, i'll explain about the design and the materials and also

point out the two errors. you may think i'm too fussy. the two mistakes may seem

not worth bothering about to you, but to me... to me they are mistakes. the shoes

are not as i designed them and however slight the differences are, i would very much

like them to be as i requested them to be constructed.

ok, this is a nice touch...

they come with cedar wood shoe trees. very nice.

the sock liner and insole are constructed from a perforated glove leather.

very soft, very luxurious. the laces are in the same light brown colour.

another nice little touch

they come with a key-fob which uses the crocodile leather i utilised on parts of the shoe

mistake number 1

see the lace eyelets ? they are in dark brown to match the croc leather.

my design stated that the top eyelet on each side of each shoe was to be in

a different colour. not dark brown, but in the same pale brown as the sock liner and laces.

so... are you with me or against me ?

i admit it's not spoiling the shoe. it's not much of a mistake, but i really wanted them 

to be that little bit different and to me, having the top eyelets in a different colour

was a good move. a sneaky little design detail that i thought was a good idea.

see the tongue tab ? i had this made in brown crocodile leather to match the swoosh

but i purposely asked for it to be left blank ( the tongue tab usually has nike air and

a swoosh embroidered or embossed on it )

i wanted the shoes to feature no branding other than the swoosh.

which leads to mistake number 2

the heel tabs were supposed to be left blank like the tongue tabs.

i specifically stated that i didn't want nike air or a swoosh on the heel tabs.

i wanted them to be in the same croc leather as the swoosh and tongue tab and left blank.

grrr !

so that's the 2 mistakes. i'd love to hear from you. do you think i'm being bad ?

or do you think i'm right to insist that they are made to the specifications i 

requested back in november ?

moving on, let me show you the rest of the shoes. look at the laces.

they have gold screw-on lace tips. i chose these laces to match the sock liner and tongue

and also the gum midsole. the shoes came with a second pair of laces in dark brown to

match the crocodile leather. they also have the gold screw-on tips.

the swoosh is in brown crocodile leather. the shoe sits on a gum midsole and an ice out.

i was told that nobody had ever used a gum midsole with an ice out before. i think it

works pretty well.

i also chose to have the stitching on the sole in dark brown and to have the 'x' stitches

on the body of the shoe in as close a colour to the insole, tongue and laces as possible.

the tongue is in the same perforated glove leather as the sock liner

here's another look at the 'x' stitches and the swoosh

the quality of the materials is first class. by the way i should have mentioned earlier

that the tip, the toe box, the eye stays, the mid panel and the foxing are all

finished in a waterproofed wool material. it feels very much like an expensive suit.

have a close look at the fronts

the wool is beautiful. i've never seen it used on any shoe before. the 'x' style stitching

i think works really well and the gum / ice sole combination does too.

i wasn't sure what to have on the dubres so i just got my name... 

... in lower case of course !

honestly, these look a lot better in real life

one last look at them before they go back in the box and back to new york

i'm really looking forward to wearing the bespokes i designed... and there's my point.

these are not the bespokes i designed.

please feel free to comment and tell me i'm miserable, too fussy or whatever,

also if you also see my point and think that the customer is right 

and that i am entitled to receive what i designed then please also let me know.