KANGAROOS x OVERKILL COIL R1 'BLUE GRAPE'

After 10 years of collecting nothing but New Balance, 2020 was the year I chose to expand my horizons into another brand, but before you create your own opinion I want you all to know that NB will forever be my #1 go-to footwear brand. KangaROOS quality and craftsmanship is hard to ignore and I’m surprised I did for this long.

We always hear or mention quality/craftsmanship when referring to footwear, but I have yet to see a A+ example until getting into Roos. In conjunction with the quality comes the backstory, extras and packaging taken into consideration with Roos and their collaborations. Most if not all enthusiasts of footwear enjoy a good custom box and extras, and from what I’ve found with Roos…they rarely fall short of that.

Ok ok ok let’s get to the topic at hand and that’s these ‘Blue Grape’ Coil R1’s from Overkill in 2014. When you’re talking limited shoes as a whole, these come in high to the top with only 10 pairs publicly released; each pair stamped behind the tongue. There were an additional 5 pairs produced for Friends & Family that have a K/ behind the tongue like this pair you see. The sister of this pack ‘Red Grape’ would release in a limited number of 50 pairs. Both the Blue and Red grape pairs were sold in a handcrafted wood box and is my favorite feature about these. There’s nothing like a nice custom box!

If you’d like to know the in-depth story on how how the ‘Grape Pack’ came to be; please follow this link to the interview between Complex and Overkill’s co-CEOMarc Leuschner.

One thing I found out rather quickly about Roos is the absence of them on auction sites; probably due to their limited production numbers so when I found these Grape’s on eBay I was surprised. I saw that the seller (Sneaker Savant) was in Oakland, which is only 25-30min from where I reside so I hit him up about a potential meetup. Sneaker Savant (SS) and I agreed to meet, and I’m glad we did; come to find out we started this crazy hobby around the same time and had very similar taste in footwear. He informed me that a client had him secure these grapes and then backed out. SS had these grapes for a while and cut off a decent amount from the advertised price for me. A fun fact about SS is that he also created a pretty in-depth grading system when it comes to shoes; so check him out!