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"My dad had just opened up our [second] store in Costa Mesa, and a woman came in and said she liked the yellow but not that particular shade, and she liked the pink but not the one he had," Van Doren said. "He told her to go to the fabric store down the street and get a third of a yard of whatever she wanted and he'd make the shoes for her." With that, Vans' custom shoe program was born. The book describes how a customer could walk into a store and choose from 100 different tongues of fabric tied to a shoelace and fill out an order form. Since Vans owned the factory as well, the finished product would be done in 19 days.

Before headphonejackgate, the most compelling reason to buy a pair of wireless Golden Goose earphones was (and may still be) to drown out the muzak in your local gym or make your weekend jog less of a bore. No one wants to get tangled up in cables in the middle of a skierg session, or earbuds that eject themselves from your lugholes at the slightest disturbance (see Apple's entrylevel versions). Like all Bose kit, its latest sportphones are solidly built, functional rather than beautiful, and sound really great. Battery life is better than most other models too (six hours between recharges is pretty good going).

Aaron Goodwin, James' Oaklandbased agent, said the battle for James' services was heated until the end. Adidas executives flew to Ohio from Germany on Monday, and Goodwin gave them an extra day to put a presentation together. But Adidas pulled out Wednesday, when it appeared Reebok would win. "Reebok was the frontrunner," Goodwin said. Eastern time Wednesday, Reebok CEO Paul Fireman gave a speech to James and his family at the Akron Radisson hotel. But they did not finalize a deal. Nike had one more chance.

To celebrate their menswear arm's first anniversary, Whistles has teamed up with Japanese selvedge denim gods, Edwin. They are also introducing a premium selvedge denim into the collection. Ideal for Golden Goose Sneakers soap dodgers, but this also adds years to their life and character, apparently. Nudie offerfree repairs in store,or a free repair kit, if you don't live nearby. Action Ready promises to last (almost) forever, Cold Ready has an insulating fibre woven into the denim andRain Readyhas a waterresistant invisible coating. Sceptical? I was too, until I poured a bottle of water over them. They were impenetrable.

"Robert Greenberg was there way ahead of the game with the 'brown shoe' game. They achieved a pretty strong market presence in a very short period of time. He's a genius when it comes to shoe design," said Lloyd Greif, head of Greif Co., a Los Angeles investment bank. "Skechers has been his baby since day one."