Still Wearing the Shoes

Before I became the kind of person with opinions about sole construction and colorway drops, I wore €20 shoes from whatever discount bin was closest and thought nothing of it. Then, at thirteen, there was this girl in the parallel class. She had dyed hair, a nose ring, and wore signal-red Chucks every single day. I pestered my mother for weeks. Eventually she caved.

I showed up at school in the bright red Chucks. The girl was already seeing someone else by then. She didn’t notice me. All I had were the shoes.

That turned out to be fine. Those Chucks carried me through what were probably the most electric years of my life—dumb adventures, new music, bad ideas, and fumbling around in somebody’s basement two streets over. They eventually fell apart in the literal sense: sole separating, canvas splitting, one eyelet dangling by a thread. After that I moved on to white Air Max, trying to project something more considered. But the love for the Chuck Taylor All Star never really went anywhere. In some quieter moment I always end up back there, thinking about those red shoes and everything they absorbed.

Converse is releasing the Chuck 70 this season in a set of vintage colorways that get close to that feeling—washed-out blues, soft yellows, muted reds that look like they’ve been worn for years and never quite recovered. The Vintage Canvas Color Collection comes in high and low cuts, six colorways in organic canvas. The conceit is to recreate the specific patina of an old pair that’s been around the block, and it works because the Chuck is one of the rare silhouettes that actually looks better beat up than new. The wear is the point. Always was.