Travelling has always made my sights shift… When I witness other rhythms and flows, my style changes. I am influenced by my home town, my past, and my present.

Back in the beginning of the 2010s, I did tons of quick roadtrips, long distance travels to other places in Canada and the rest of the world for dance competitions.

Ottawa being only a two hour drive from Montreal was one the cities I preferred the most. My first visit was in 2011 for one of Canada’s top hip hop festivals, House of Paint. Ottawa always had that real street culture essence. Being smaller than Montreal, you would only find the realest cats out there. I was heavily influenced by some of the b-boys and some hip hop heads I met from that area.

I was already a couple years into buying excessive amounts of shoes, so my main task for the trip was to find local boutiques and thrift shops. I always made it mission to bring back a pair of shoes as a memento. Some b-boys had told me about NRML, I wasted no time and found it right away.

Internet never resonated with sneakers for me. My appreciation of sneakers reflected what I would either see on feet or on the shelves of a sneaker store. My tastes were really specific, yet, extremely open. I made it to the back of the store, it had a little dark corner where a bunch of unusual silhouettes were sitting, what they called ‘’the sale section’’. There were tons of adidas shoes I had never seen in my life. A quick pan of the wall made my eyes stop on this crazy ZX 9000 in an aqua-purple-ish colorway. I was in love! They were from 2009 and had a price tag of 30$ Canadian, needless to say, they made it back home with me.

Years have passed, and unfortunately, they haven’t been looked at nor loved up until a couple days ago when I found the box in my shelves. As I took the shoes out of their box, I remembered exactly what went through my mind that lucky day.

I don’t travel as much as I used to back in the day, but whenever I open a box, it makes the clock stop ticking and gives me that sensation of flying away, again.