Names of Dunks

The day of the hyped up dunk, the dunk that feeds on the hype its consumers create is long gone. Gone are the days of the "Homer", the "Tiffany", and the "pigeon". These days may come back, but for now they are gone and it has affected the sneaker community whether it be for the better or the worse. However, in order to discover why these days are gone, we must look at many aspects of hyped dunks.

We must look at the people who buy them, myself included, the styles or the content of the actual shoes, and their marketing, included with this; their names. I have found that the names of recent dunks either do not create buzz the moment they are heard or simply do not relate to their shoe, and for this reeason do not create buzz. Take the "Brut" Dunk High. A decent shoe, not great but decent. Its name meant nothing or very little to a lot of people, thus it never received a large amount of attention to the point of a New York Post article (you know what I'm talking about). Or how about the silver "Medicom" dunks. They looked good but the name didn't fit the toy company we love.

Then you look at the successful dunks, successful in terms of gaining lots of hype, something bad for people that truly love the sneaker, who find themselves unable to cough up 400 dollars or the risk of getting beat with a bat in line for shoes. The name, "Homer" meant a lot to a lot of people, one of the greatest shows on earth, The Simpsons and when you look at its design, it fits Homer Simpson perfectly. How about the "Tiffany," with its signature blue colorway perfectly matching its inspiration in jewelry and creating a new colorway in its own right, with many people when thinking of "Tiffany," automatically remembering the sneaker. So what do you think? Does the name make the sneaker? Will we begin to see great names again at some point soon?

images courtesy of nike-dunks.net and hypebeast.com