Published by Swiss James on 17 Nov 2009 at 01:14 pm
Kung-Fu Air
Nike have made a few shekels from a minor baseball player called Michael Jordan.
They got him to jump up fancy, took a photo, stuck it on a few pairs of shoes and boom! Mazooma in the bank.
Air Jordan
If my favourite Chinese trainer- FeiYue ever want to make the leap* from cheap canvas plimsoll to a major sporting brand, they’re going to need similar brand recognition.
Based on the kind of people who wear FeiYue right now, I’d say their main options for a Jordan-style tie-in logo are:
1) Manual labourers digging a ditch
Air Gong Ren
b) ironic indie-rocking hipsters
Air Studied Pose
or… iii) awesome kung-fu kicking monks from the planet DoubleHard.
Air I’m lying on a bunch of spears and what are you going to do about it?
Don’t believe that Kung-Fu monks wear FeiYue? Wendi sent me a bunch of photos to prove it.
Back up the money trucks, we have a winner.
[Thanks Wendi!]
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I don’t think they really fall into the manual labor crowd – those are fake feiyues. Feiyues are pretty money shoes – very very cool amongst the Shanghainese who were growing up here in the 70s and early 80s. I don’t htink the manual labor crowd is down enough for the real shizzle.
No way- I saw guys putting up a ceiling wearing them just last week
James – how do you know they are not a tribute or a cover version?
No problem! I am glad they provided such awesome fodder for your Shoe Tuesday. :)
Jeffwho- I asked them to show me the original tax receipts, then I sent a sample of the canvas to the FeiYue factory for analysis
Wendi- :)
When are you going to get some real ones anyway swiss?
Love these shoes.
First got some when I started a kung fu class in 2002 up in Hong Kou by Dong Baoxing Road station cos that’s what everyone wore and they were cheap.
Then I was a bit dismayed to see after the massive sudden influx of ex-pats a couple of years or so later, that hipster types were into them and started to re-sell them online at massively inflated prices. I assumed the days of cheap Feiyues were gone.
Happy to see that Culture Matters on Dongping Road sell the standard Feiyues even cheaper than your local Dongfang Sports. Great.
Kung Fu should defo be the new logo/brand or whatever.
But can I get a pair in UK size 12 on Dongping Lu? I have basically given up on shoes in the middle kingdom, can never ever find my slightly larger size.
Does the original FeiYue brand still exist? I thought it had been bought by a bunch a french guys who now sell them at prohibitive prices.
I bought a pair of FeiYue during my last trip in China for a few yuan and I assumed they were fake.
Now I m all confused. Is there still a Chinese FeiYue brand?
Dingle- I had the fakes before you knew what the real ones were!
AB- word
Anonymous- I’m not sure if FeiYue make them up to a 12, but if Culture Matters doesn’t have them, check on here for the location of the factory shop.
Bastien- Frenchies control all of the export sales, and I heard were trying to screw over the original brand since it isn’t a properly registered trademark. But they still make them here and sell their own shoes if you know where to look.