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True, I think I read in Shoe Dog, that Phil Knight eventually hired those same factories too lol. Explains why dunks and some retro Jordans in the recent decade have the banana toe box and what not. Agree with you on the sourcing of all materials, which as evident by the minor but noticeable differences between authentic and UA/reps means it's pretty tough/not economical to source 1:1.No such thing as unauthorize pairs. Factories are contracted or not. Former contractors make fakes. Etc. fun fact. The assembly line for a contracted factory is identical to non contracted. They use same tooling equipment. Only difference is how good non contracted factory are able to source the material close to the contracted one.
the same reasons why B-grades exist; reps seem to slip up for various reasons:Just to be clear, when I say reps I also mean so called "unauthorised" pairs. These people have the blue print for shoes (often stolen from Nike) and the right material (also often stolen from Nike). Now if they have the equipment to put it together, why would there be any difference between a pair from a Nike factory and a rep factory?
- Materials (for argument say lets say it's the same thing 1:1, so ignore this for now)
- Quality of Work (overall silhouette, placement of panels, threading)
- Sizing (reps, UA are sized incorrectly in comparison to authentics, which are sometimes also sadly sized incorrectly too LOL - Nike probably playing with the lasts smh)
- Serials (factory tag dates, box stamp, shoe tags)
- Fonts (stitched on lettering or stamped on lettering, inner tags, insole stickers, box label)
- Box and packaging (stuffing is not the same, wrong shoe trees, wrong accessories)
- shoe guru special - smell
I personally don't hold it against anyone for wearing or buying reps; heck Sachs himself doesn't care if you have the real thing or reps and does have some interesting takes about this topic. For me, line is drawn if people knowingly push reps/UA as authentic onto unsuspecting consumers.