Sneak In Magazine

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STOP SELLING LOOKALIKES! Nike Responds After Court Orders Warren Lotas to Stop Selling Lookalikes

Complex's ‘Sneaker of the Year’ Book Releases in December The book, created in partnership with Abrams Image, features interviews with designers of these iconic silhouettes

The Reebok Beatnik The Beatnik is more of a hybrid design, one that boasts the foot-hugging feel and look of a cozy slipper while retaining some elements of an athletic shoe

WHO IS VIRGIL ABLOH?

CONTENIDO Nike responds to Warren Lottas.........................04

Who is Virgil Abloh?............................06 Complex Sneaker of the YEAR.................................08

Reebok Beatnik......................10

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Nike Responds After Court Orders Warren Lotas to Stop Selling Lookalikes "Nike is pleased with the preliminary injunction order issued. Nike filed this lawsuit to defend and protect its intellectual property and clear up confusion in the marketplace between legitimate customizations and unlawful fakes. By prohibiting the sale of the fake Nike Dunks, yesterday’s order is an important step towards achieving that goal."

After we broke down the Warren Lotas vs. Nike saga in detail last week, a new development has taken place in the case involving the Beaverton, Oregon brand's preliminary injunction against the up-and-coming designer.

A judge in the United States District Court of the Central District of California has granted most of Nike's requests in the request, which accuses Lotas of profiting from "illegal fakes" of the brand's Dunk sneaker. The ruling also addresses the Swoosh's reply to Lotas' attempt to replace the offending sneakers with a similar model called the Reaper.

Judge Mark Scarsi has ordered that Lotas and "officers, agents, employees, attorneys, and all persons who are in active concert or participation" with the designer are prohibited from fulfilling any of the preorders for the Staple Pigeon OG, Freddy Broccolini Chanclas, and any other imitation colorways. It goes without saying, but Lotas and company are also barred from "promoting, offering to sell, selling, and/or taking additional preorders" for the

aforementioned designs.

The court points out that Nike's claims of marketplace confusion hold merit, with examples of Lotas' product being listed on eBay with titles such as SB, Nike SB, and Nike Dunk.

As for the Reaper, it's unclear what exactly the future holds for the replacement model. The court ruled that Lotas is also not allowed to promote the original sneakers as a way to generate sales for his other products, including the Reaper shoe. A doctrine known as initial interest confusion is cited, which concerns matters where defendants use trademarks to "capture initial consumer attention, even though no actual sale is finally completed as a result of the confusion."

"Warren Lotas plans on benefiting from this initial interest in the WL Pigeon and WL Broccolini by now offering the Reaper to customers who preordered the WL Pigeon or WL Broccolini," reads the court order. "It is irrelevant that Warren Lotas has informed these customers that the Reaper is not affiliated with Nike,

because the initial interest confusion attached prior to that disclaimer."

Although Lotas has already told Nike he will not fulfill preorders for or sell more pairs of the offending sneakers, now he's legally bound to it. The designer voluntary passed on his opportunity to further dispute the preliminary injunction, arguing that he's done enough by not fulfilling preorders, providing refunds, and stopping advertisements related to the Dunk-like shoes. However, the court says while these actions are promising, Lotas "still has the potential to profit off of the likely infringing conduct" by replacing the original preorders with the Reaper, along with his plans to ship a "commemorative lawsuit shirt, pencil, and bumper sticker.�

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SAYING NO

Think Different.

WHO THE F@!K IS “I am all about championing this new era of designers becoming the new rock stars,” wrote Virgil Abloh on the blog The Brilliance in 2007. Fast-forward a decade and Abloh is exactly that. The American designer has risen from a Chicago kid obsessed with fashion, art, design, and culture to the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear operation.

As Abloh prepares to take the reins at one of fashion’s most iconic brands, we’re looking back on his career trajectory, from onetime Fendi intern to Kanye West collaborator to Off-White founder and collaborator nonpareil.

1980 Abloh was born on September 30 outside of Chicago. He and his sister are raised in nearby Rockford, by Ghanaian immigrant parents. Abloh attends the Boylan Catholic High School—official colors green and white—and graduates in 1998. His mother is a seamstress and teaches him the tricks of her trade.

2002 Abloh completes his undergraduate degree in civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. (In 2015, he would return to design commemorative tees for the university.) Rumor has it that on the

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S VIRGIL ABLOH? day of his graduation, he skips his final critique to take a meeting with Kanye West’s then-manager John Monopoly. West and Abloh begin officially working together soon after.

2006 Abloh completes his master’s degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

During his time at IIT, a Rem Koolhaas building is completed, which Abloh says, “piqued my interest and opened my gateway into fashion.”

2009 Abloh and West become interns at Fendi in Rome. Louis Vuitton CEO Michael Burke recently told The New York Times, “I was really impressed with how [Abloh and West] brought a whole new vibe to the studio and were disruptive in the best way.

Virgil could create a metaphor and a new vocabu-

lary to describe something as old-school as Fendi. I have been following his career ever since.”

Abloh and West, along with a crew of famous friends, make the rounds at Paris Fashion Week, turning heads in the process. They’re photographed by Tommy Ton for Style.com outside of the Comme des Garçons show in what becomes a widely circulated picture and a representation of off white.

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Complex's ‘Sneaker of the Year’ Book Releases in December Which are the models that shaped the sneaker scene as we know it? Complex captures that timeline from 1985 to present day in Sneaker of the Year: The Best Since ’85, a new book releasing in October 2020 that examines the single best shoe from every year for the past 35 years.

The book, created in partnership with Abrams Image, features interviews with designers of these iconic silhouettes, insights from the people who helped make them famous, and photography straight from the in-house archives at brands like Nike and Reebok.

It explains, from the Air Jordan 1 to the Reebok Instapump Fury and beyond, the path sneakers take to become cultural icons. What is the impact of Allen Iverson's Reebok signature series? The NBA legend himself traces that in these pages. How did Kobe Bryant’s models change the game? Nike design veteran Eric Avar has the answers. What makes Virgil Abloh’s Air Jordans so good?

Chicago creative maven Don C will tell you here.

Sneaker of the Year is available for pre-order now through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Indie Bound.

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THE SNEAKER MAKES THE MAN 1

How Reebok's Beatnik Sandals Became a Hit 26 Years Later Despite the fact that it’s loved by sneaker enthusiasts, the Reebok Beatnik isn’t really a sneaker. And although Reebok officially calls it a sandal, the shoe doesn’t have much in common with traditional open-toed footwear either. The Beatnik is more of a hybrid design, one that boasts the foot-hugging feel and look of a cozy slipper while retaining some elements of an athletic shoe—most notably its rippled, shark tooth sole. The clog-like shoe feels tailor-made for our current at-home situation, but it isn’t a carefully timed reaction to quarantine. Instead, it’s one that’s been tucked away in Reebok’s archives for years, a shoe that has long been embraced by fashion-forward residents of Japan but was seldom seen in other parts of the world, until now.

Designed by Nick O’Rorke, who worked as Reebok’s creative director

of footwear trends from 1990 through 1997, the Beatnik was introduced as part of Reebok’s Fall 1994 Outdoor line. “Originally made in Brazil and released in the West, it gained cult status in Japan, where traveling footwear enthusiasts

bought the Beatniks overseas and brought them back to Japan,” says Stephanie Schaff, senior archive specialist at Reebok.

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WE MADE SKITTLES TASTE LIKE FRUIT SMOOTHIES. ITS CALLED MAGIC. LOOK IT UP