Can you smell that smell? IPath, the skate brand made famous by the loose truck-riding, dreadlocked hippie skaters of San Francisco, is back. Founded in 1999 by Matt Field and Ben Krauss, the brand stuck out in the early 2000s due to its callback to classic footwear design amidst a sea of skate shoes with air bags and overbuilt, puffy silhouettes covered in plastic bits.
The brand had a strong run early on, but sold to Timberland in 2007 and was discontinued in 2013—by then, IPath was a former shell of itself. It’s been over a decade now and people have quietly asked for an IPath comeback.
What made IPath cool in the 2000s was partly the shoes and partly the skaters attached to it. I remember watching guys like Karl Watson, Nate Jones, and Matt Field cruising through the streets of San Francisco, skating legendary spots like Pier 7 with their free-flowing styles. On their feet, they had either the IPath Cat, a skateable version of the Clarks Wallabee, or the Grasshopper, a mid-top take on an Air Jordan 1/Dunk/Air Force 1 silhouette.
Nate Jones in an original IPath ad. Image via IPath
Skaters in San Francisco had long been known for wearing non-skate shoes to skate and chill in. So to see a brand like IPath that played off well-known designs made sense.
I remember wanting the Grasshoppers in black with white piping so bad. All the brand had was a phone number in ads in Thrasher; that was the only way I knew how to get them. I’d call and call and call the San Francisco number and never get a hold of them. I was able to track a pair down in 2002 at a Zumiez in white and navy and skated them until the sole came off.
In an episode of the Complex Sneakers Show, sneaker industry insider and brand person Ian Ginoza, who worked as the brand’s first art director, joked that the people running the company were doing “other things” at the time
Jenkem Magazine recently went through the history of IPath with an interview with skateboarding legend and team rider Kenny Reed, who’s involved in bringing the brand back. He reminisced on how much of an impact Zumiez had on the brand that took it from apartment to malls in America.
IPath Cat, image via IPath
“Zumiez helped us get off the ground,” Reed said.“It was their big orders that helped us fund the manufacturing right away. We don’t have any big funding, so those initial orders really helped us make shoes. What happened is that they flew some shoes directly from the factory to their warehouse which is why they were offering them first. The rest of them had to go by boat.”
I remember in 2007 when Timberland bought IPath. My mom worked at the bootmaker for about 15 years. And she brought me home a pair of IPaths one day. The feeling wasn’t the same. The shoes were hemp in a Rasta colorway, and the furthest cry from anything I was interested in at that time—and the original IPath shoes.
But IPath has gone back to its roots. The brand relaunched this month and brought out original shoes like the Grasshopper, Cat, and Cricket, a hemp low-top version of the Grasshopper that still looks Dunk-esque.
Karl Watson Ipath ad, image via Karl Watson
The sneakers retail between $95 and $105. Some people online are ecstatic to see IPath back. Others are skeptical about the brand being able to sustain momentum or people actually wanting to spend money on the shoes. Skate and sneaker writer Zach Harris said, “2024 skateboarding in a nutshell lol nobody has been waiting!” about the IPath relaunch.
As for me, I won’t be purchasing, I don’t think. The shoes look cool. I just don’t have a need for them, as I haven’t really touched a skateboard since the famous kickflip clip on Full Size Run that was shot a decade ago now.
IPath Cricket, Image via IPath
But it’s nice to see a brand from my childhood come back and do it the right way. And there’s a chance, at least according to Reed, that the shoes might be better than ever.
“So far I’ve only been able to skate in samples. Our delivery just arrived by boat and we’re going to start shipping soon,” he said in the Jenkem interview. “The anticipation has been pretty intense. I think the shoes feel really good. The Grasshoppers and the Cats feel better than I’ve ever remembered them.”
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