This product Is a "Pre-Sale", meaning that inventory is already in production, and you're reserving the item ahead of time. "Pre Sales" also mean there is limited inventory available to reserve. If it's sold out, it's sold out.
At any point in time before we ship it to you, the item is 100% refundable. After it ships to you, you're covered by our 30-day return policy and sizing exchanges are free!
Those Shoes.
The "Mockba" sneakers have long been a white-whale of soviet spetsnaz obscura. An unobtainable bootleg that's arguably more desirable than what it cloned.
We all want the special-forces-cool-guy gear and when we started our hunt for what seemed to be a cheap pair of sneakers we found ourselves down one of the deepest rabbitholes yet. The "Mockba" family of bootlegged sneakers stems from an unconditional love of that one company with the three stripes, their Olympic representation in Moscow 1980, and the subsequent theft of a lot of tooling when Adidas step foot into Russia.
Instead of just throwing a pair of sneakers at a factory and asking for a redux, we went far to make these the best of both worlds. A sneaker you'd actually want to wear, but one that pays homage to the Russian copies worn by their special forces during the occupation of Afghanistan.
The result is something that is unmistakably a German-trainer styled shoe but with just enough spun off that people are definitely going to ask a few questions when they see them.
Whether you're matching them with your KLMK or you're wearing them every day, we've tailor made our Mockbas for historical enthusiasts and sneakerheads looking for a budget banger alike, avoiding China for higher quality production in Pakistan and making a totally one-of-a-kind shoe from heel to toe.
Specs
- Made in Pakistan
- High quality blue suede upper
- Spetsnaz-correct 4-striped pattern
- Reflective gold "SPORT" print
- Woven mockba 'e' tongue tag
- Custom molded outsole with "MockBa" lettering
- Outsole tread pattern inspired by timeless "track & field" pattern.
- Printed mockba logo on heel
- Double stitched "Arrow" shaped toe cap
- Includes hang tag & box (so you can flip it on stockx?)
Additional notes:
- May increase kvass consumption capacity
- Cyka Blyat
- May aid in slav squat and flying-door-kick abilities (user discretion is advised)
Size & Fit
We worked tirelessly to make sure that the foot shape is more contemporary while remaining true to the original contours of the shoes we based these off of.
If you know the size you typically order in adidas, the overall fit is going to be just ever so slightly narrower than that.
Break-in can aid this, but it's better to be safe and contact customer service as soon as possible if you have any doubts.
If you do need a different size we offer easy exchanges as part of our standard a 30-day return policy.
Care Guide
As with most things, prevention is the best step to keeping suede shoes clean. A spray-on suede protector will help protect the leather from dirt and stains.
Regularly brushing the leather with a suede brush or a soft bristle brush removes loose dirt from the surface, prevents said dirt from getting matted into the fibers over time, and keeps the fibers looking fresh.
Small scuffs are usually just spots in the leather where the fibers have become matted down. If brushing isn't lifting the fibers, running a knife or a thin edged object lightly over the area will help reduce the matting.
For water stains, the best removal method is to lightly wet the affected area and dab with a rag, until the color and texture is even. Place it on a shoe/boot tree or fill it with paper to hold the footwear shape as it dries. Once it has dried, brush over the surface with a soft dry brush.
For tougher stains like salt and mud, use a mix of 2 parts water to 1 part white vinegar to lightly wet the leather until the color and texture are even. After letting it dry, brush with a soft bristle brush.
These are the most common methods for caring for suede footwear, and more in-depth, niche guides can be found through a quick search on the web.
Making Our Mockba: Quality From Heel to Toe
The OG, Upgraded
We made sure not to dabble too much in the looks of the spetsnaz-spec originals, but we mixed in a few extra details to make them "what they could have been".
The shoe's silhouette remains true to the German Trainer style, with the "mockba" elements remastered in HD.
Show Your Stripes
The originals featured two or four stripes as to not be hunted down by Dassler himself - we opted for 4.
The golden "Sport" lettering remains a vibrant nod to the shoe it's inspired by.
The Logo
Mockbas came with several kinds of logos, we picked arguably one of the most mysterious, featuring a strangely placed 'e'.
The sewn on tongue patch is fully embroidered so you can show the KS-Sport "Brand" with pride.
High Quality Suede
The most important material overall was the blue suede — from heel to toe-cap it looks and feels as premium as any slav could dream of.
Custom-Molded Outsole
Only the KS Sport mockbas will feature our markings - we comissioned a totally bespoke outsole inspired by the original shoes with hig quality emblems on the bottom and sides of the shoe.
The Complete Package
The result of all the details & upgrades are a pair of shoes that go far beyond "Costume" use. You can slav squat or run ops in them all day long without hurting a collectible original (or your wallet).
THOSE Shoes.
Kicking Things Off
Sometimes all it takes is an iconic photo or a scene in a movie to lead your Imagination into wild new territories. As the great Jeremy Clarkson once said, "I went on the internet, and I found THIS."
For us, this image sparked our interest many years ago. It's been posted all over forums and imageboards, even inspiring some to re-create it. The posts would go something like this:
"That flying-karate-kick of the door is equally insane and badass."
"Was this in Chechnya? Probably."
"Is this another classic appearance of Adidas on a man of Russian or otherwise Slavic Descent?"
So we started digging.
It's Reps All The Way Down
We were fooled. These aren't Adidas at all, but that was just the beginning. Enter the "Mockba" Sneaker.
In English, it's pronounced "Moskva", which is Moscow. It just so happens that the shoes have an accidental joke in English, that they're "Mocking" the originals.
Designed after you-know-whos best-selling silhouette, these grey-market knockoffs of the real deal were made cheaply, and distributed widely.
And they hit the Russian market just in time for a major conflict to demand a different kind of footwear.
It was Russia's turn to try (and fail) to occupy Afghanistan. And this shoe was everywhere.
Shoes Of The Spetsnaz
Russia had a problem with letting their old stuff go. Just look at the Kalashnikov. The occupation of Afghanistan involved a lot more mobility than the stuffy & tall boots of the Russian military could handle.
The most mobile troops of all were the special forces, and they decided to completely ditch them all together.
Cheap & practically disposable tennis shoes were way more comfortable and agile.
Like many fighting forces of the 60s-80s, photos would emerge of the toughest men on the planet bearing their uniforms & kit, their trusty rifle, and off-the-shelf tennis shoes on their feet.
But there were plenty of shoes on the market, why Adidas specifically? right before the occupation of Afghanistan was one of the most controversial sporting events in history, and one brand would make itself seen the most.
Moscow, 1980
Since Jesse Owens' won 4 gold medals with The Dassler Bros' shoes in 1936, Adidas was a household name in Olympic-level sportswear.
While the Moscow Olympics were being decried by the west, Adidas still provided their iconic tracksuits and shoes to all, where it made a particularly strong appearance on Russian Athletes.
Learn more about Russia's love of the three-striped juggernaut in this blog post 👇
The Rule Of Cool
Adi Dassler's domination of the market is well deserved, but the obsession with Adidas is truly cult-like in slavic countries.
In fact, the very image most people think of when they think "Gopnik" (the name for the hooligan youths of slavic countries) usually involves Those three stripes.
The bootleg market was understandably massive. Most of the time when you see "Adidas" in photos of this era, they're typically mockbas due to how cheap they were.
Bootleg-A-Thon
Without China, notorious for cheap copies of today in the picture, who were the bootleggers?
Rewinding back to the Olympics, the USSR had strict rules regulating brand representation in the Moscow Olympics. If they wanted visibility, they had to open up shop in Russia.
Adidas saw few issues with that and proceeded - But after the games, the factories were nationalized and tooling was all effectively stolen. Early 'Mockbas' on the market used Adidas tooling, and the market exploded with a cacophony of clones-of-clones.
We obviously don't have the power to steal entire factories so we decided to start from scratch and go a little more premium with our remake.
