2010 - BEST OF THE BEST SNEAKERS

HAL x Rebook GL6000
For a sneaker collector, I’ve copped relatively few sneakers this year. In fact, I’ve collected none. Maybe it’s the comedown from my 2009 sneaker overdose (30-something pairs), but there hasn’t been a single pair this year that’s tickled my fancy. That was until my boy Andy Cee posted a most intriguing pair on Twitter a while back. He told me his cousin in Perth had designed them. Yeah right, I thought, another one of Andy’s tall stories.

They were indeed designed by his cousin and I had egg on my face. Speaking of eggs, they say once you bake a cake, you can’t add ingredients. And no matter how good it looks, you know it’s going to taste like shit if you forget the eggs. Thankfully the fellas at Highs and Lows (HAL) got the ingredients just right when they cooked up this fifth birthday treat - the HAL x Reebok GL6000. A close relative of the Phase II and Classic Nylon, the GL6000 was recently pulled out of retirement and offered to Highs and Lows for their very first collab. Designed by Scott from HAL and designer Stephen Vetten, the shoe draws on the classic style shared by the entire HAL crew. Featuring a red, black and grey colourway inspired by the HAL Mt. Lawley flagship store and a gingham inner taken from the shop bag, the shoe reflects the HAL brand to a tee. And given that 6000 is HAL’s local postal code, the HAL x GL6000 is a match made in... Perth.

But as the old saying goes, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. And this is a slice of cake I won’t ever get to taste, because the smallest size these beauties come in is a mens US8. So quite literally, 2010 has been a year of Highs (finally finding a shoe I like) and Lows (not being able to have it).

Photo by: Helen McLean www.helenmclean.com.au