The return of the Converse x Fear of God ESSENTIALS Skidgrip

First introduced in its original version 110 years ago, the Skidgrip model from Converse is one of the great forgotten classics of the sneaker world. A model that is now ready for its great return, thanks to the re-issue signed Jerry Lorenzo, who collaborated with Converse to bring a modern version of the 80s silhouette back into his Fear of God Essentials collection.

The shoe's original name, Circular Vamp Oxford, testifies to the tennis origins of the shoe that had already been transformed into a basketball shoe in the 1920s and later also into a boat shoe, thanks to its exceptional gripping capabilities on the ground. It was in the 1970s that the shoe spread to a wider audience, evolving in the 1980s into one of Converse's most versatile models thanks to the prints it was decorated with, which were called Red Pacific and Bright Primitive. It had already become a symbol of the surfer and skater community.

When a young Jerry Lorenzo first saw it, when he moved to Florida, he fell in love with it immediately:

In South Florida and California kids surf and skate; those cultures naturally blended. Even though I wasn't a skater or a surfer, mixing in pieces from those cultures allowed me to move through different segments of friends.

The modern re-working of the shoe has brought the model back to modernity. The sole has been slightly retouched to resemble the Fear of God 101 sneaker model produced by the brand's mainline. The shape of the upper and the height of the laces have also been updated and re-imagined to conform to contemporary tastes. The prints that decorate the top, on the other hand, remain the same as in the 1987 model, recalling the story of a model strongly loved by Jerry Lorenzo – who decided to return to produce the sneaker for reasons that, in addition to design and tradition, are completely sentimental.