Various Shoe News

Footwear News magazine is an industry weekly so there can be a lot of weeks in which there isn't a whole lot of news between its pages. This past week's post-WSA shoe issue, however, was info-packed and here are some of the more interesting items (the first three which came from the incredibly talented Brian Russak's "Insider" column):

Rockport is doing a big ad push for one of its line with four up-and-coming stars: musicians Lyfe Jennings and Yung Joc, actor Wood Harris and MTV personality Coltraine Curties. I actually visited the Rockport booth while in Las Vegas and thought this approach was an interesting progression on doing a mix of entertainers rather than just rap artists.

Two of Rev Run's kids, 23-year-old Vanessa (who's a St. John's University graduate) and 19-year-old Angela (a student at F.I.T.), are launching a sneaker line called Pastry, which will be manufactured by Vida Shoes.

There could be a shoe line in the works for Beyonce, but in the meantime, the Derion hoodie she wore in the "Irreplaceable" video sold out. And she may or may not help out Jay-Z when he does a fullscale launch of Rocawear's women's shoes at the MAGIC trade show (which I believe is going on as we speak).

And then elsewhere in the mag in an article on women's urban footwear trends, the executive v.p. of Baby Phat, Bob Mullaney, gets uncomfortable with the descriptive "urban":

"We don't consider ourselves urban here. That classification is fading. We don't apologize that there are some definite roots [in the urban market]. But it's really a designer lifestyle. [Kimora Lee Simmons] wasn't a hip-hop star--she was a model. She was closer to Karl Lagerfeld and Chanel than to hip-hop."

Oh sure, Bob. Kimora's marriage to and the fact that she had two kids by a guy who owes his life to rap is just completely meaningless. And I'm sure Kimora would have been JUST as famous without him. Look, I know the term urban has its shortcomings, but damn, Bob, could you run any harder from it? How about embracing and celebrating for a change, dude? Cuz it's not like 18 billion trends that Chanel eventually gets around to embracing didn't start in the hood five years before.