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Adbusters Blackspot V2 Boots - Kickin' Ass!
2008.09.22
Adbusters Blackspot V2 Boots - Kickin' Ass!
Once upon a time, way back in the 90's, I had a pair of Dr Marten's 10 hole steel cap boots. And what marvelous boots they were. They saw me through thick and thin. I wore them to uni, wore them out, and wore them through my career stocking supermarket shelves through the night. They looked the biz, and I loved 'em. After probably a good eight abuse-filled years of faithful service, they finally got retired to the back yard as flowerpots. Having an upcoming vacation to London, I thought there could be no better place to buy my replacement bovver boots. I bought a new pair - 10 holes, steel caps - same size as my old pair. But I noticed they were now 'fashion' boots according to the label, no longer meeting the ANSI standards guaranteeing that you could safely stand in 500 degree steaming hydrochloric acid while a truck drives back and forth repeatedly over your caps. Sadly, this was era where Dr Marten's had outsourced their shoe making to remain competitive, no longer made in England, which also saw the discontinuation of their vegetarian shoe line. These boots were uncomfortable, the sole split numerous times... these were nothing of my old boots. Boo hoo....
So you could say I've been searching for a decent replacement ever since. Earlier this year, I went and tried on some of the Palladium 'Baggy' boots. Not bad, they where okay, but lacked of attitude. Perhaps I'll get them when I need some boots to match my pyjamas...
My search ironically came about after the death of another pair of shoes - my Adidas 'Chile's - which I used to commute to and from work in. A suitable vegan replacement was heralded in the Adbusters Blackspot sneaker. Ironically, this was all happening around the time my girlfriend's brother was trying to get us to buy some Nike Air Jordan six rings, or something. As you probably know, some poor exploited villager subsists on a couple of bucks a week for slaving away in a toxic Nike factory while fat-ass CEO's get fatter and Tiger Woods gets paid a jillion dollars for poncing about in a fucking Nike hat.... FUCK THAT SHIT!! Nike have been cited numerous times for turning a blind eye to deplorable human rights issues, and continue to do so!
Deep breath... okay.. where were we? Shoes... so they stock 'em at Moo Shoes. Ripper! So off I pedal. The sneakers were out of stock, but on the shelf, right next to them, the V2 'Unswooshers' sneer at me with a suitable amount of punky angst. Trying them on reveals that finally, I have found a vegan boot worthy of being worn, worn with pride, and worn with some kick yo ass attitude! Fuk yeh...
The boots sport the anti-logo, and the hand-painted red sweet spot, for kicking corporate brand sluts square in the coit. Completely vegan, bio-degradable, made in a union-shop, and designed by bootmeister extraordinaire - John Fluevog!
Buying a pair of Blackspots sees you with a shareholder certificate, designed to let you participate in future Blackspot enterprises. There is also a little booklet detailing just how we lost our community generated culture to the new culture spoon fed to us by the controllers behind the mega brands. The Blackspot 'brand' is open-source - meaning anyone is free to participate and contribute. Make your own Blackspots by blotting out the logo on them, and paint the red spot if you like!
If you plan to buy online, I found the size generous enough. I about an 8.5 U.S. with my shoes ranging from size 8 to 9. The size 8 unswooshers fit me pretty well.
More details here, or check 'em on Moo Shoes site. Also note, the newer ones seem to be black in color, while the older ones where grey.
6 comments
"There is also a little booklet detailing just how we lost our community generated culture to the new culture spoon fed to us by the controllers behind the mega brands."
Many critiques of capitalism and 'big business' are blighted by this odd nostalgia for what modernists like FR Leavis called 'organic communities': Raymond Williams writes about this, and suggets that people have been mourning the loss of the great community spirit since the 18th century, though you could probably still detect in 1920s Wales. I can't see how buying boots online can help with this at all, or indeed, if there is anything to help with.
I think the boots are pretty cool, though.
NPS-solovair.co.uk was always one of the rivals to Griggs and Co's DMs and survives making vegan DMs in everything but name. They even make safety-certified boots.
Palladium.fr is now just a brand but Vulkan.sk in Slovakia makes very strong canvas boots in that style with chunky soles moulded straight-on. It's quite hard to track them down as their products have other companies names on when sold but the things sill exist.
Unswooshers are still in stock in the UK made in Portugal, while the company gets its new batches which go to Canada made in Pakistan.
As for J Hole, I was interested too in the idea of why unswooshers are so special in terms of community. As far as I can tell from Adbusters, their founder hates Nike adverts and the way exploitatively-made products from China can be sold with massive margins for advertising and put products and fashions from say Canada out of work. So ideally Unswooshers should have been made by firm in Canada for Canadians, keeping local fashions and foibles and an economy that makes sense too. After years of fiddled exchange rates by cowboy economists, this would be great, as would less music from MTV and more from my local indie band.
Recently Adbbusters have moved away from their hopes and dreams a bit I think. They are using suppliers that aren't even in a democratic welfare state, let-alone Canada, and they weren't lucky in bringing shoe-wearers together into a society for encouraging un-advertised local products.
Crowdfunding is the new buzzword. It seems every month a new web site has found some legal loophole to allow punters to back their favourite products, rather than the ones chainstores and banks want them to buy or invest-in. As with adbusters, their starting point is promoting local films and bands over MTV blockbusters, but the system branches-out into a means to crowd-fund a batch of shoes perhaps.
Anyone want to invest in the next batch of cheap UK-made wallets? I haven't thought of a way of doing it yet but will probably use Kickstarter.com as it seems to have the biggest following. They plan to allow UK payments soon.
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