Review: Fallen Footwear's Chief Skate Shoe

You would think that as any person of note: a basketball player, lacrosse goalie, snowboarder, BMX vert champion, skateboarder, that your signature shoe would be a thing of magnificence. The construction would be most paramount, assembled by a fleet of angels, sewn together with thread made from Minotaur fur, with needles carved from unicorn horns. The design would be meticulous, as if wearing them akin to clouds dancing around your feet, you never feel the earth because you are merely passing by. If you buy a pair of Jordan’s, they are well built and function great. They will not make you an actual Michael Jordan (much to the chagrin to un-athletic, score monster, vertically challenged twenty year-olds), but you will at least be able to wear them in a normal every day setting. Jamie Thomas, a supposedly well known skateboarder, and his shoe company Fallen Footwear, have riled me up to write a review of his signature shoe: The Chief. This shoe is the closest approximation to actually wearing a shoebox instead of the skate shoe that one could possibly get away with. On the list of features this shoe portends:

Jamie Thomas signature model. One would assume this means the man wears this shoe to do Xtreme events in, right? This seems to be a fabrication of facts, seeing as this shoe is such garbage in just average normal everyday wear and tear that I could not imagine trying to compete in any event, save beating someone with the shoe itself, to justify it’s crapiness.

Genuine heavy-duty suede, synthetic nubuck, and/or canvas upper. This statement reads more like it should start with a “Maybe has”. The and/or kind of gives the sentence a “feeble shrug” kind of vibe.

Asymmetric stabilizer for medial upper support. Padded tongue and collar for added comfort and support. Seeing as most purveyors of skate shoes target teenage boys and young adults I feel like this bullet point is more a jumble of podiatrist words to accentuate the fact that NONE of those things are true, except for the padded tongue and collar which is absurdly padded, and is actually the only good part about the shoes. Of course you’ll achieve stabilization if your foot is being crushed by the giant ass tongue of the shoe. It’s like a boot for a cast!

Vulcanized sole construction. Translation: There’s a zig-zaggy pattern on the bottom. Oh, and the logo! Oooooh! Yay industrial presses!

Soft EVA insole with full length latex layer. Yea, it’s in there, it’s soft, I don’t know what the hell an EVA is, but it does bunch up an awful lot! So if you like having that feeling of folded up sock/cardboard underneath your foot all day, you’re in luck! And it’s really annoying and there’s not much you can do about it.

Highly abrasion-resistant rubber outsole for enhanced wear and durability.
Translation most shoes are made with these specs. Also durability my ass: this is after ONE DAY of wear! This is a skate shoe people, this is EVERYDAY wear-n-tear! You’d think it’d be a little better in the durability department.

Gel heel insert for added shock absorption and impact cushioning. I moved this bullet point to last because it is where most of my rage lies. The whole genesis of this review was wrought from this abomination on skate shoe paradise. The apex of this shoe’s shit construction lies deep in the recess, under the heel, with the “gel insert”. First of all, I guess “gel” is a loosely defined word. It’s a lot shorter to write out than “shitty piece of shaved plastic that’s about 2 cm thick and provides actual no real benefit than to be hard and annoying to your heel”. Well, that wouldn’t really be blurb-able would it? It provides zero cushion and shock absorption! On top of this, the gel heel insert doesn’t even cover the heel, mostly just the center mass of your heel, thus adding to that giant pebble in your shoe feel. Now, if this was part of the insole, kind of like a Dr. Scholls, I could forgive it for it’s obtrusive nature and general crappiness. But no, it’s attached with some sort of epoxy, wherein, the damned thing SLIDES out from the place it’s supposed to be, and often will be found on the side of your heel, meanwhile the insole bunches up on itself with the epoxy creating a uncomfortable, warm, sticky foot nightmare! The glue/epoxy gets all over your heel, your socks, anything unfortunate enough to find itself down there. Mind you, this is just from everyday wear. I’m not carving up the skate park, and woe to me if I would even begin to.
Upon removing these scourges from my shoe, I realized a new problem: There’s not really anything underneath the heel! The shoe now feels like it’s set at an angle, with no padding, save the sole, underneath the heel and then progressively more padding along the rest of the shoe. This really can’t be the case?!

This is completely nonfunctional as a skate shoe. Aside from it’s ability to lock your foot and ankle in to position as to not roll it, as I assume must happen to skaters a lot, it is a piece of garbage! Jamie Thomas should recall these shoes, or at least disavow any knowledge of having made this his signature model. It’s akin to buying what you think would be Slash’s Les Paul signature model, and when the package arrives it is a Ukulele with a piece of beef jerky crammed into the sound hole.

Verdict: Only for your most hated enemies birthday present, or to beat back feral animals if cornered in a dark alley.