Ronnie Fieg Collabs - Tracking order link http://shop.kithnyc.com/pages/tracking

Sent the reply to Asics. Thanks to @chowfun89 @af1 1982 and @Shayan3023 for all the pictures and documentation.
 
Hi,

Thank you very much for getting back to me so quickly. I will try to supply as much information as possible in this e-mail as well as a timeline of events. I personally made an order through the store but have not received my package yet, so all of these pictures and interactions are from others I am in contact with and have received their pair.

It all started when a fellow sneakerhead noticed an eBay auction for Ronnie Fieg x Asics Gel-Lyte III 'Homage' shoes at a very reasonable price considering today's market value. The link to the auction can be found here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Asics-Gel-L...hash=item5d6b851545:m:mA0ddVhARojj8E8fgYJB4hQ

Observing this user, we felt confident that we could trust the seller as they have ~93,000 sales with a 98.9% approval rating. I'm sure you can understand why we all felt that this was a great deal to take opportunity of. At first the seller had about ~50 pairs, which could have made sense (each size had between 1-6 pairs available). Once this auction was discovered, myself and fellow sneakerheads jumped on the purchase and soon after the stock sold out. To our surprise, a few hours later, the buy it now price jumped by $100 and the stock was replenished. This had us a bit concerned. The shoes were then also listed on ruzeshoes.com. The next day, the price was reduced back by $100.

Just a little input on the shoe itself: We know they were designed by Ronnie Fieg and marketed as the final pair of the 25th anniversary collection for the Gel-Lyte III. We also know that each store that participated in the anniversary collection released 1990 pairs (to coincide with the original release year). Ronnie Fieg's store Kith released X amount of pairs featuring a special box set (laces, socks, pin set, and book) and other boutiques (mainly in Europe from my recollection) released Y pairs of the same shoe but in the classic Asics blue box featuring only the extra 10 pairs of laces. These were released on and around December 23, 2015 and sold out immediately.

Now back to present day, we come to find this store selling upwards of 100 more pairs with stock to spare. It's not the first time we've seen a pair of collaboration Asics re-appear after the original release date, but never in this quantity.

One person I am in contact with received their pair yesterday and posted pictures (which are attached to this e-mail) comparing the pair from Ruze Shoes to the pair he originally bought from Kith last year. These new shoes are IDENTICAL in every way to the original pair, including the each of the 10 laces. The only thing we noticed was the size tag imprinted on the tongue. We had noticed that the font of the "Made in Vietnam" writing was different and that the production code at the bottom was different. We also deduced that the production code at the bottom most likely contains a production month and year as the last four digits (we may be wrong about this).

We compared the size tag to various other Gel-Lyte III sneakers from Asics and collaborations and deduced that at some point in 2016, Asics started using a new font. All the shoes that were purchased in 2016 that we checked have a matching font where all the ones made in 2015 and before were different. This is only true for ones with "Made in Vietnam" written. Those that are Made in Japan have different writing altogether. Again, other than the tag, the shoes are identical. In my opinion, these shoes have to be the one of the most complicated shoes to produce, let alone copy to this precision, due the nature of the different materials used.

Finally today, we decided to get some more information from Ruze Shoes. They obviously could not detail their purchasing process, but they continued to state that the shoes are 100% authentic and received from Asics America in a shipment including master cases, model number, and Asics America on the box. They also stated their shipment contained these as well as other general release Asics models. We also discovered that Ruze Shoes is NOT an authorized dealer of Asics but a reseller of various shoe brands. Although they are authorized for many other brands such as Puma, Timberland, etc... A copy of the eBay message transcript is attached as well (picture 16). They also stated that these shoes were created for a second release.

In the end, we are not looking to tarnish anyone's reputation. I'm sure you can understand, us as sneakerheads would just like to own this shoe as part of our collection but without the doubt that they may be of a fake nature. We want to be as unbiased as possible and either enjoy our newly purchased shoes with peace of mind or begin the process to file for returns.

I've attached detailed pictures of the shoes received from Ruze and the original Kith purchased pair. In all the pictures, the TOP or LEFT pair is the Ruze version (pictures 1 to 13). There is also a picture of the box label and QC stickers (pictures 14 and 15). Again, this pair is not personally mine but that of someone I am in contact with. If you need anything from me, I will be sure to find you any more information or details that I can. One of the pictures is also that of a pink coloured shoe, this is just to show how we determined that the size tag font had changed as the pink shoe was released in November 2016 (picture 17). Images 18 to 31 are that of the Ruze pair alone from another person that received their package.

Thank you again,

-M
#HomageGate
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chowfun89 said:
Thanks for taking the time to investigate all this. I'm surprised Asics was so quick to respond but we'll see what happens.
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I had sent an e-mail to the standard CS address and got a reply titled LEGAL with a file number of sorts.
 
Can't remember whether this was posted before. Anyway, if you're interested, FF to 11:54 to get his review of the shoe.

 
 
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