…comes around
Mike V is making the nostalgia rounds lately. First he ditched his own company to team up with Powell again, and now he’s going back to Airwalk. I had completely forgotten (more likely failed to register in the the first place) that he ever rode for Airwalk. They’re re-releasing the Enigma. as well as releasing some new versions of old classics reworked by Vallely. You can hear him wax poetic about returning to the Airwalk roster after the jump. I think Airwalk has changed ownership at least twice since he left.
[Source: Artist Direct] – Thanks to Tito for the tip.
Is it ok if I don’t bother listening to him talk anymore? K, thanks.
Wow. Just wow. Airwalk isn’t even really a skate shoe company anymore. They make Rip off TOMS and and Vans and stuff for like 20 bucks at Pay Less. I have a pair of their skate shoes in High school. They barely lasted a week.
I had several pairs of Airwalk shoes back when I was a little kid & they were great shoes! They were only a skate show company then. They held a fair share of the market at the time (late 80s)& tons of people wore them. I’d kinda like to see reissues of the old school ones with the lacesavers. Sadly, they are Payless shoes now & have as much to do with skateboarding as Ed Hardy.
When I think of Mike Vallely, the first thing I think of is Army green fatigue pants and those orange and turquoise Enigmas. I think whoever owns airwalk now is trying to make a 2nd go at real skateboarding. Everyone is biting Vans shit now a days though, so I just go straight to the source and buy Vans.
i had the airwalk disasters hi tops i cut off the hideous ollie gaurd lace savers…then they looked cool. the enigmas in that color way are the bomb!!!
the same 7 year old girls are making these shoes as vans, lakai, and all the rest of the sneakers. doesn’t really matter without domestically manufactured options
I wore a ton of Airwalk shoes over the decades, I remember cutting the Enigma hightops down to lowtops with kitchen scissors. Influenced by Matt Hensley’s interview in Transworld stating that it was easier to do tech tricks in low-tops. And what middle school skater didn’t want to be Matt Hensley back then? I’m such a tool.
I don’t ever buy shoes at a skate shop. Why should I? Payless’ buy one pair get the second for half price Airwalk deals do just fine for me. Plenty of $60-$90 “skate shoes” have been destroyed in a month or two. Chad knows what’s up – they’ve all been made in Indonesia, Korea, China etc. for a LONG time now. Who gets rich from them matters little to me; it has nothing to do with skateboarding.
i don’t remember payless giving any kids the opportunity to earn sponsorships and a chance to see how far skating can take them. a lot of shops these days are finding ways to get lower cost alternatives to the ‘high fashion’ skate shoes (that seem to be sold mostly to non-skaters or kids whose parents have more money than mind)
what friggin skate shop do u go to? i get any name brand for $39.00 on the clearence rack
I can remember in ’84-’85 going to the skateshop and flipping open the Vans catalog and custom ordering what canvas you wanted on the side as well as the suede bits and what color stripe you wanted. Off it went to Cali and 6 wks. later you’d get your one of a kind high tops. I’d be happy to custom select my underpaid, overseas employee that would be making my shoe at this point.
Who needs leather or suede, when you can have a pair of plastic shoes?
I was a poor kid; I had those red canvas Vision high tops.
I vividly remember the in-your-face Airwalk ads in Transworld.The one with that cracked leather/chipped paint look was my favorite shoe.
Same here,in fact me and my cousin and friends would have the black and white or black and red divided VSW hi-tops, and trade a shoe so we could rock 1 black & white w/1 black and red.
I thought Andy Mac still rode for them
Check Airwalk website.
Also shows they don’t exlusively go for the skate industry but more extreme sports in general.
Would no one else give him a shoe deal?
For Reals???? 17 posts about this dipshit and nobody mentioned how FKN lame Mike Vallely is? He is the skateboard version of Henry Rollins. Almost makes you feel embarrassed for liking both when you are young. I can barely listen to Whos Got the 10 1/2 cuz I keep thinking what a dildo Henry Rollins is. Vallely belongs with Airwalk. They always sucked but I still wore them cuz my mom got them out of the discount bin at Mervyns and that was the best I was getting. He and Andy Mac can circle jerk all over their laces savers.
when nightmare on elm strret came out in 1985 u barely saw freddy krueger and he was sooo sick…when nightmare on elmstreet 5 came out freddy was so played out almost like a vegas act. vallely and rollins kinda shot their core fans w/ the viacom media whore spotlight. i guess a few extra bucks will turn anyone into a blow hard.
Well, I think that what makes him happy. I really hope so. Good luck to him. By the way, thanks for sharing.