Ronnie Fieg unofficially holds the elusive ‘Master of Collaboration’ title, as made crystal clear with his recent BMW campaign in mind; combining KITH’s nobel streetwear heritage and BMW’s infamous German engineering to produce a truly memorable crossover. But, before fame and fortune he was known throughout the sneakersphere for creating some of most sought-after ASICS you COULDN’T get your hands on -- utilising unique colours and materials (with a little inspiration from his early-years at David-Z) to cement the Gel Lyte III’s status as the Japanese brand’s flagship model. Without getting too ahead of ourselves, everything Ronnie would touch at ASICS turned into gold.
The pair above is his ‘Selvedge Denim’ GLIII from 2014, which features a full SELVEDGE upper as the name suggests thus tapping into both a very fruitful denim market at the time and of course quenching your devoted sneaker-enthusiast thirst for innovation.
We were fortunate enough to get our hands on a pair that December, swiftly taking a sandpaper and knife partnership to one of the two feet with an end-goal of creating a form of worn-in, pre-loved look. To our surprise, the single sneaker was REBLOGGED and REPOSTED repeatedly across internet forums globally -- in fact, to this day we still get asked about them. Sadly, the bad news is that we never finished both shoes in true mismatched fashion.
These days it is almost a regular practise to BLEACH and customise denim pieces -- in some cases becoming a crucial element of production for international brands. However, back in 2013 it was taboo to purposely TRASH your kicks.
Denim is famed for its strength and durability, which is unsurprisingly the reason that brands opt for it when planning for heavy, hard-wearing collections to age differently depending on the wearer’s habits. In fact, the material has been used in many areas of fashion and footwear but only recently have we really given the cotton-yarn blend a license to SHINE.
Ronnie transitioned seamlessly from a successful yet limited run of suede-clad Gel Lyte III’s, to conquering Selvedge Denim with the correct level of EXPERIMENTATION. As humans we don’t enjoy change, and somehow Fieg managed to cushion our fall into premium material fetishism.