New Balance Lifestyle has launched a campaign around a limited release of 480 of their 574 Clips running shoes in a direct attempt to solidify its standing with influential sneaker fans and bloggers.

The designers over at Lacoste must be pretty busy these days, seeing as how they’ve been cranking out some great brand innovations as of late. Up next? The Lacoste Stealth Collection will be introducing a series of sneakers with a  “Back To The Future” inspired theme, which will tie in to it’s futuristic strategic trend line for their Autumn/Winter ‘09 Collection. Our first peak is at a sneaker  dubbed “the Dot Fade Pack” and is the classic Ibiza Mid and Carnaby Lacoste Models with a new  coloured gradient designs on the uppers.  Also available online is a short clip for [...]

Sneaker Mirror is an interactive installation created with Processing. The screen uses tiny images of sneakers as pixels to form a reflection of the person standing in front of it. Because the projection is determined by what the attached camera sees, it creates a mirror-like effect and changes as the viewer moves around.

Sneaker Mirror from Jesse Chorng on Vimeo.
[via Human Resources]

Sneakers can speak volumes, both about their owners and the times. In fact, in many countries sneakers are considered cultural artifacts. It’s no surprise that people around the world collect, critique, and obsess about kicks. But the lengths some sneaker fans will go, and then spend, often seems a mystery. Mysteries make us curious, and beg decoding.
Peep Insights recently conducted a global sneaker culture immersion, talking to sneakerheads in key cities like Tokyo, London and Sydney to get an insider’s perspective on trends and attitudes. We got the chance to talk with the owners of [...]

Last June, we confessed our fascination with Warrior brand, China’s first hip sneakers. Now it looks like another “made in China” sneaker brand is fast making advances to claim the spotlight.
TianLangs sneaker-footwear of choice for many miners, farmers, and factory workers-have been produced by the same rural factory in China for more than 50 years. Instead of simply ripping the iconic design, Ospop worked closely with the factory to produce a remastered version that maintains the same silhouette but employs better materials to create a more durable and comfortable shoe. The result is a shoe that looks like the lovechild [...]

Did anyone notice a colossal push by Nike to promote the AF1’s 25th Anniversary. Of course you did. It was ‘cool’ as we know it: limited edition versions, parties with cool DJs, art stuff, underground designers, cool blogs with exclusive announcements going ‘ape’ (as they say), art stuff, limited edition stuff, stuff. But was the campaign ‘cool by numbers’? Did the worldwide orgasm-of-cool campaign have any effect on sales though?

Y-3 stamps it mark on Muji white sneakers….

Treehugger reports on their current faves.

What do you do with an iconic brand that is celebrated for one basic style? Yeah, you could try to extend the brand into new categories (yawn), or even get some whacked out designer to create a new shoe (oh dear),