The Austyn from Habitat Footwear has been one of the more highly anticipated pro models of the year. The demand of the shoe hasn't necessarily been from a promise of groundbreaking technology or a unique take on an already popular silhouette but because of the phenomenal year Austyn Gillette has been having. Much of it has to do with his stellar performance on the board, but what really brought him into heavy pro contention was his QUIK part that was released by the Berrics in collaboration with Quiksilver.

HUF 1984, week 1 to week 4. The end result of 20 hours.

Much like getting a woman to climax, finding a top performance paneled toe to skate is damn near impossible. They are becoming a thing of myth but once in a while, we're intrigued by a few models that catch our attention. As with pleasing women in the sack, these encounters don't happen to often but when they do, we're never going to forget the experience. This HUF 1984 review is clearly that special & its performance during this review will reflect just that. The HUF brand hasn't had a review on RL's in quite sometime & that's a damn shame. Since our last review with HUF, they've rapidly become a staple of every skate shop & boutique worldwide. Ever improving, they also introduced a refreshing team with the likes of Joey Pepper, "Team Handsome" soon-to-be-inductee Brad Cromer & hopefully Jimmy McDonald soon! We've been seeing you skate em' Jimmy.

 With all this momentum, our expectations are high for HUF as they introduce Joey Pepper's pro model in the coming year & continue their global take over. More on that shoe soon, for now, check out their most technical model to date, the 1984.

Interrupting someone while they're putting their blood, sweat and tears into design is never a proper way to start up a conversation. Sure enough though, that's how we managed to get a couple of words in with Fallen footwear designer, Nick Pappas. While having him on the phone, we talked about Fallen's new brand direction and more about this leaked photo from his instagram, the Porter.

Scouring the internet for our daily dose of content has taken a turn for the worse. After innocently checking out Thrasher's latest coverage of KOTR featuring the Creature team and also watching the Krooked vs Kolorado video, we've come to the assumption, if not certifiable fact, that VOX might be on its way out.

"Ripped Laces recommends" is all about highlighting a shoes performance and feel without going through a lengthy, annoying & technical read. It's all about giving you the facts, straight up. This section is mainly dedicated to those shoes we absolutely love to skate on our off time of doing reviews. Now, we'll accept the notion that this sounds fucking ridiculous because: why would anyone need to skate another shoe when you're already reviewing one? The truth of the matter is, sometimes we don't want to collect data & just want to skate a shoe aimlessly and enjoy ourselves, you know....how we use to before we started reviewing & critiquing shoes. You must be thinking "Those poor bastards" & we're glad you don't have to know our pain.

Click to enlarge, then "Right click" and select "View Image" for an even larger photo.

 
Since leaving you off with the sneak peek, we've been dissecting these detailed photos of the upcoming Reynolds shoe obsessively. Emerica has put together their best efforts to give Andrew exactly what he wanted in a shoe and it most definitely shows. Working side by side with Emerica's primary footwear designer August Benzien, Andrew has given just as much of himself in his latest shoe than he ever has before. After meeting up with August, he let us in on every detail there is about the new Reynolds from Emerica.