Nike SB Koston Shoes at CCS.com

Eric Koston is one of the most recognized names in skateboarding and his shoes are just simply known as Kostons. Koston’s legend was forged in the 90’s, but holds strong today thanks to a slew of timeless video parts such as Goldfish, Mouse, Menikmati, Chomp on This, Yeah Right, and Fully Flared... just to name a few, but here’s a quick edit about unlocking the L.A. Courthouse, which is a prominent spot in many of his early parts mentioned above, courtesy of the Nike SB YouTube channel.

Koston has built a career on remaining one push ahead of the competition. Be it trick selection, attitude, style, or shoe design, he just seems to have an uncanny ability to predict the future. Moving to Nike SB has allowed Koston to continue to grow his influence in skateboarding and on shoe design. Nike’s resources and experience in athletic shoe development have allowed the next generation of Kostons to push the boundaries much like Koston’s skating did in the 2000’s. Shoes like the Nike SB Koston 3 Hyperfeel that borrow flyknit stitching from Nike’s Soccer division are a great example of this fact. Resources aside, riding for one of the biggest sportswear brands in the world has its perks. Instead of having one signature shoe per year, Koston had several and they all had different features or introduced a new piece of skate shoe tech.

The Koston Hypervulc comes with Nike SB’s Hyper-vulc outsole, as opposed to Nike SB’s traditional one-piece cupsole. The Koston Max is an obvious step away from a traditional skate shoe, but not from the skate lifestyle. Many skaters, after a long day of skating, want a pair of lightweight, comfortable trainers, so it only made sense for Nike SB to offer trainer versions of the Koston and the popular Janoski (The Koston Max and the Janoski Max). This shoe features lightweight breathable mesh and exposed flywire cables for a lockdown fit. The Flywire cabling tech was carried over to the Koston 3 Hyperfeel XT, which also features Nike SB’s extra-tough construction to extend the shoe’s life. And what the Quickstrike Nike SB x Soulland Zoom Eric Koston didn’t have in fancy tech, it made up for in tons of Scandinavian-inspired swag. That being said, it was still a Nike SB shoe and wasn’t completely without skate tech, these incredibly fly Koston’s came with a Zoom Air sockliner.

Of all these models, the Koston 3 Hyperfeel XT’s flyknit garnered the most attention in 2016. But we refused to believe the hype, instead we put the Koston 3 to the test in our Koston 3 Hyperfeel 100 Kickflip Wear Test. For more on the Koston 3 Hyperfeel and how it came about, you should check out the Koston 3 Flips The Script write-up on Nike News.com.