Sneakerhead Theatre Of The Absurd: A Bootleg of a Bootleg Nike and The Return of the Upside Down Swoosh

Things are getting weird out there…

Raff’s vintage sneakers compared with Maden ‘Fake Series’ retro upside down swoosh sneakers.

Here at the Deffest blog we’re all about a groundbreaking post and we think this might be a new milestone in sneaker history - the first time we’ve ever seen a bootleg of a bootleg. This post was brought to you by the power of Google’s Lens tool. We recently picked up and reviewed the vintage sneaker book by Mikiji Nagai’s called C-Class sneaker collection. The joy of collecting.’ While we were researching that book we used Google Lens to find more information on it we came across this link to a brand called ‘Maden Wear’ series of sneakers called the ‘Fake Series’ and donning another upside down Nike swoosh. See photos below:

As best as we can tell what happened here is that a factory purchased the Mikiji Nagai book then went rogue and began making knock offs of the sneakers in the book, shockingly including a copy of Raff’s brand 1970’s upside down swoosh Nike bootleg. There is no tongue or heel label on these shoes outside of the footbed which says Maden C-CLASS sneaker. Just to be clear we are not promoting these sneakers but merely reporting on it. The sneakers in the photos above are low quality construction and an overall poor design. We’d much rather have the OG Raff’s or some proper 1970’s old school Nike runners. One last note - we reached out to Mikiji Nagai for a comment but did not hear back.

Deffest Book Club: Mikiji Nagai's 'C-Class sneaker collection. The joy of collecting.'

Today we’re looking at the excellent Japanese sneaker collector book ‘‘C-Class sneaker collection. The joy of collecting” by Mikiji Nagai. We picked up this book because we’ve been continuing to research the strange case of the vintage Kinney NBA Le Village upside down swoosh sneakers to either confirm or disprove that they may have been manufactured by Nike. We’re still digging into that post and will hopefully have some kind of update down the line. This C-Class sneaker collecting book was published by Graphic-sha in 2021 and features 160 pages of 1970s and 80s deep cuts from the vintage sneaker market in Japan.

C-Class sneaker collection. The joy of collecting. Vintage sneaker book by Mikiji Nagai. Published by Graphic-Sha.

Cobra, Osaga, Jets and Cedar Crest 1970s and 80s vintage sneakers.

The book features some great photos of vintage runners and and other old school sneakers from a long list of brands including Airwalk, Asahi, Asics, Avia, Baliston, Bata, Bauer, Bravas, Brooks, Butting, Buster Brown, Cedar Crest, Cobra, Etonic, Jets, Jox, Kaepa, Karhu, KangaROOS, Keds, K-Swiss, Mizuno, Moonstar, Osaga, Romika, Saucony, Spot-Bilt, Vans, Wilson and more. The upside down swoosh sneakers on the cover were made by a brand call Raff’s shoes.

Raff’s brand 1970’s / 80’s upside down swoosh bootleg Nike sneakers.

If anyone is in the market for a holiday gift for the sneakerhead in your life this would be a cool item to give and we’ve included the book information below:

Author: Mikiji Nagai

Title: ‘C-Class sneaker collection’

ISBN: 978-4-7661-3489-6

Publisher: Graphic-sha

We’ll be posting articles a couple of more articles that reference this book over the next couple of days so stay tuned.

Athletic Interest: Youtube's Greatest Channel covers Nike's Greatest Bootleg

Putting up a quick post to let you know that the excellent YouTube Channel Athletic Interest picked up the wild Nike ‘One Line’ bootleg story and made an awesome video out of if it. For those of you who do now know about Athletic Interest it is a great YouTube channel that covers interesting stories at the intersection of Sports and Business. We have spent hours watching these videos and are huge fans. If you like this channel please make sure to like and subscribe. Special thanks to Fabian for the effort!

The ‘One Line’ sneakers are currently up for sale via auction until April 20th over at Heritage Auctions if you want to buy them.

Complex Sneakers: How Nike Bootlegged Its Own Sneakers

MARCH 2022 UPDATE: These Nike ‘One Line’ shoes will be posted for sale by auction with Heritage Auctions between April 7 - April 20, 2022. Please check the Heritage Auctions website at HA.com if you are interested in buying them.

Putting up a quick post to give a shout out to the team over at Complex sneakers for covering the ultra rare Nike ‘One Line’ sneakers. If you have time you should check out the article ‘How Nike Bootlegged Its Own Sneakers’ by Tim Newcomb at the Complex website.

For more on the history of the obscure Nike ‘One Line’ brand you can check out our blog post ‘The Rarest Nike Shoes Ever Don't Even Have A Swoosh.’ These sneakers have an extraordinarily strange history and helped to save Nike from going out of business back in the day.