In 2021 DeFY. New York was approached by adidas to work on a collection with three of the most knowledgeable and respected footwear enthusiasts in the industry for the Court To Concrete collection With that collection came the opportunity to collaborate on pairs that would be exclusive to each part of the Collectives friends and family and thus gave birth to the Just For DeFY. New York rivalry lo 86,
DESIGN INSPIRATION
With the collections ties to New York -and @defynewyork most identifiable image being a train -the initial inspiration for the design of this shoe were trains specific to New York. Growing up and living in New York the trains are of course engrained in our lives and so the majority of the upper is in two different shades of grey as some trains would look depending on how the light is hitting the metal -this design took into account only silver trains not white or red and you’ll notice in photos how the grey changes depending on the lighting-.
Defy Newyork is featured on the rear side panel in a modest graffiti font in reference to the graf/art that covered pretty much everything during that time.-
The gold embroidery accents were meant to represent the subway tokens used to take the train and hits of reflective coating were added to the heel and underlays by the perforations to reference sparks on the rails. This was the first reference for design.
The Second design reference- for my die hard shoe heads this is something you’ll know almost immediately for others they wouldn’t get such an obscure reference. By the time the early 90’s rolled around I was well into a sneaker obsession – we are talking all brands- so anytime there was a store with sneakers whether it was Footlocker, Herman’s, Mom and pop spot’s etc I was in there. Most stores during the 80’s and 90’s carried a wide variety of shoes and brands -way more so than today- which leads me to the now defunct Just For Feet. Not every store got specialized product but Just For Feet did, special make ups or SMU’s, one of which inspired this shoe. It was around 1992/93 -there have been some conflicting reports on the exact year- and I’ll never forget walking into a Just For Feet and seeing a pair of New Balance CM1600’s in a glass case-if you know you know- that was positioned in the middle of the store and with a piece of yellow notebook paper taped to the glass that said $200.00. It was an insane price for a shoe in the early 90’s but what really caught my eye was all the sparkling gold embroidery. It was the first “collab” shoe I ever sweated and being a Just For Feet exclusive and matching the colors I wanted, made this another perfect point of reference and inspiration for -Just For DeFY. New York since this shoe would be exclusive to the websites friends and family. *****That shoe was brought back for the first time ever in Japan under the ‘Just For The Fit’ but in no sizes larger than a US 11 btw.
Photo via Charles Morgan
-Third design inspiration – When the adidas Rivalry lo originally released it was of course a shoe endorsed by Patrick Ewing and with Pat having played at Georgetown and there having never been a Georgetown inspired retro of the rivalry lo -with the exception of the recent atmos rivalry lo 86– I wanted colors that would pay tribute to that -similar to his Hoya Terminator’s-
2021……… Aside from COVID and everything else that was going on, our family suffered through a huge loss. Kristopher Polanco lost a courageous battle against a rare aggressive cancer in February of 2021 at the age of 38.
Kris was always a huge supporter DeFY. New York, we would talk for hours about sneakers, music, antiques, jokes…..everything. We bonded in a special way and he became like a brother to me. The last time I spoke with him he told me he didn’t want to be forgotten -something that would never happen- . That conversation stuck with me and when I was approached with this project -the same year- I knew I wanted to pay tribute to him on the shoe. It initially started off as a keychain and transitioned to a full tribute behind the tongue. With this, Kris’s memory will be cemented in sneaker history forever………….
