TROOP & SPX FEATURE!

Do you think Nike and adidas had an eye on what you guys were doing? Were they worried about how successful you were becoming?
Yeah, no doubt. You can’t point fingers at anybody in particular but Troop was killed dead in America because of the rumours that were put about by worried competition. They were saying that the Ku Klux Klan were financing the brand and that we’d put these racist messages in the heel.

I was forever fighting off comments and questions about if there was any involvement. It was all nonsense, of course. So yeah, I think the big brands were very, very aware of what we were doing and it shows in some of the stuff that they were doing.

I noticed there was an air bubble in the heel of a couple of your models there. And there was the use of elephant skin textures which, of course, is still a Nike signature look. Were you reacting to them or was it the other way around?
We took inspiration from wherever we could find it. And if we saw a trend developing with them, then sure, we’d have a go. I mean, some of those shoes - the later ones I was working on - were based around the Nike Mowab. Unashamedly. It really did look good that shoe. So we were doing our versions of things and they were doing the same. I’m pretty sure that Troop in America, the original brand, were up front with that kind of elephant skin and textured leather look.

Did SPX ever try and crack the US market or was it just an English thing?
Oh yes, we did. We had distributors over there. The whole idea was to try and cross this English British Knights kind of heraldic thing with the bling thing, I suppose. And it did go down quite well over there, I must admit. It all went a little bit wonky not long after though, as I said before. I left to work on another brand called Blackmail, I don’t know whether you’ve heard of that one?