The Blackspot Sneaker: coolest shoe ever?
So Adbusters has for the past few years been putting their money where their mouth is. They preach the Green gospel, and they act on it, too. Only in Canada, man.
The newest project from them is the Blackspot sneaker. Which looks pretty much exactly like a classic Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star, except the logo has been all scribbled out. The project began after Nike bought Converse and moved the shoe production from a cheap-ass plant in Mexico, to a slave-labor cheap Nike plant in Indonesia.
Here is who the Adbuster folks found to make their sneaker:
Then Robin Webb of Vegetarian Shoes in England suggested a family-owned
factory in Portugal's Felgueiras region. Our creative director spent a
few days inspecting the facility: it has a union which workers can
join, wages that are comparatively high, and gives one month paid
vacation - plus two months salary bonus at Christmas. Since it comes
from Portugal's centuries old tradition of shoe craftsmanship, it can
also make shoes of the highest quality.
How cool is that?
Continue reading to see the whole email from Team Blackspot.
Blackspotters,
We found it! After two years of researching shoe plants in Slovakia,
Poland, Indonesia, China and South Korea, the hunt for our factory is
over.
When the search started, we found Phil Knight's Nike had plunged
sneaker manufacturing into a macabre scene of export processing zones
and sweatshop labor. To make a sneaker, all roads led to the Orient,
but factories there didn't meet our standards.
Then Robin Webb of Vegetarian Shoes in England suggested a family-owned
factory in Portugal's Felgueiras region. Our creative director spent a
few days inspecting the facility: it has a union which workers can
join, wages that are comparatively high, and gives one month paid
vacation - plus two months salary bonus at Christmas. Since it comes
from Portugal's centuries old tradition of shoe craftsmanship, it can
also make shoes of the highest quality.
Blackspot is vegetarian - we're using no animal products whatsoever.
It's made with hemp - good hemp. Our Romanian hemp supplier is an
industry leader whose manufacturing process uses no chemicals, and
whose hemp is certified organic.
So far, we've received 8,300 pre-orders. As soon as we have pictures of
the actual shoe, we'll post them on our site with the official orders
form. In the meantime, why not urge your friends to take the plunge by
going to blackspot.org to reserve a pair.
When you buy a pair of Blackspots, you get a share that allows you to
cast internet votes on the design of future prototypes, factory
options, and how to spend the money we make. Eventually, we want to
create our own cooperative factory. The Blackspot is an unfolding
experiment in bottom-up capitalism.
The Blackspot is an attempt to launch an antilogo, an anticorporation,
and a shoe to kick Phil Knight and the avatars of "cool" in the ass.
We're going to cut into Nike's market share and change the way the
industry is run. When we hit the market early this fall, you can bet
the battle will get interesting. Go to
- The Blackspot team