The Osiris Designer Speaks On The D3 Rip-Off | “… if you’re a shoe fetishist, the D3 2001 is like a fine wine.”
Been a lot of talk in the streets about A$AP Rocky biting the Osiris D3 2001 for his Under Armour collab. Then we found out that he tapped Dave Mayhew for cred on the collab. The problem is the D3 was in Dave’s name, but he wasn’t the actual designer. So now we get to hear from the actual designer himself, Brian Reid. Hot topics.
Sample:
So I want to get your side and Osiris’ side of Under Armour copying the D3.
Oh, so you want the truth? [laughs] You don’t want the side, you want the truth.
How do you feel about Dave getting the credit as the designer for the Osiris D3?
We went shopping and bought a couple of shoes, and I went designing and he went skating. That was the relationship there.
There are two different shoes, there’s the D3 the D3 2001. The 2001, which is really the shoe that’s in question here, is not the D3. They’re totally different shoes. The D3 2001 was completely designed in Korea. Dave wasn’t even in the time zone, the continent, the country, zip code, area code, nothing. So when we designed that and brought it back, Dave didn’t even really like it. He was like, “Wow this is too big. I can’t skate in it.”
Then he signed up on the endorsement deal, obviously, and we told him that we would make him another shoe later. It was gonna be called the D3 NTX, and that was super thin, low to the ground, and way more skateable. It was still technically crazy, but you could actually skate in them.
The fact he’s sitting in GQ with Rocky frolicking on top of some car, like two little giddy school girls, and they’re saying he’s a “legendary shoe designer,” I’m like, ugh. Not only did I design those shoes, but I’ve also designed many since then. The proof is in the pudding. It was my company, I named it, I sponsored Dave. It’s those things that are a little upsetting.
Click to JENKEM for the story behind the Osiris D3 with its actual designer
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