PUMA Suede

• MODEL: PUMA SUEDE
• TYPE: BASKETBALL
• MADE IN: VIETNAM
• MADE ON: 07/98
• ART.NO: 339036 90
• FACTORY: VMC

With so many colorways and subtly different styles, the PUMA Suede is undoubtedly a daunting sneaker to review, especially when one considers its overall importance within the general history of trainers.

If average Joe goes down to the local shoe shop and pops in for a brief look decades ago and then again in today’s world he’ll likely see no difference between the Suedes of present, past, and future. But take a true connoisseur to the corner store of kicks and you’ll hear a whole different tune. Subtle differences in shape (especially in the toe box) and the limited runs of various colorways leave those who lust after these lush basketball trainers breathless in their hunt for every version.

And every version it was in the ’90s, when production went massive and the rainbow was thoroughly explored, with other tweaks such as a pointier toe box, thinner sole unit, slightly longer tongue, and more padding overall. An even more discrete shift in design was the move of the leaping PUMA cat, originally placed next to the branding text on the side wall, and now pictured to be going up and over the typography. The German cats climbed to bigger ambitions as new colors flowed out of the minds of their designers.

In fact, this exact art number (as with a majority of PUMA’s products) is shared between each of the variations from the same production time, the last two digits in the number marking which particular colorway it is. An example of this can be seen in the following ‘amazon’ green and yellow pair we previously featured. Curiously enough though, the two shoes were actually not only produced in separate factories but even separate countries.

Apparently PUMA was busy in the late ’90s, takin’ over the globe, one fat-laced foot at a time.

written by Dylan Cromwell

photography by errol