Jay Gordon Interview: Bodega x Saucony Elite

Footwear label Saucony recently worked alongside Boston’s Bodega on their classic Shadow running series. Under the sub-label Saucony Elite, the range will only be available in select Japanese accounts. Sneaker Freaker recently sat down with Jay Gordon from Bodega to talk about the range, Saucony as a brand and the footwear industry today.

It has been an interesting six months with so many independent retail stores hitting the wall, how have you seen the past year?
There has definitely been a shake-up on the retail side and if we weren’t so lucky to have such a loyal customer base, it would have been scary. Boston is very loyal to its own. We have customers that return shoes to other stores once they find out we have them at Bodega. You can’t ask for better customers than that.
Black vulcanised skate sneakers and all-white canvas plimsolls. How long before these scourges disappear?
Now that the black vulc skate shoes are ubiquitous in the malls we’ll hopefully see a drop off soon. As for the all-white canvas, it will be a while since everyone is trying to go super clean, plus we’re lucky in Boston because our seasons can only support this look for about six weeks a year anyway.

One thing we’ve noticed is that runners have dropped off. Nike Air Max, adidas ZX… the go-to shoes of the past few years really lost their gloss. Do you agree?
From a retail perspective, I do agree. We have seen the same or similar colourways a little too often. When the weather is nice, I find that people start looking for Air Max 95s, 97s and 90s as well as the 87s. As for the ZXs, they’re making a comeback. I am a true running shoe enthusiast and I’ll always have a soft spot for clean runners.

Tell me about Saucony, what’s your perception of the brand?
My perception is that they’re misunderstood. They’ve been around for over 100 years but you never see any of their older models, anywhere. They have a library of the best old-school runners and no one has seen them for almost 20 years. They’re huge in the performance running space but there is so much more to the brand. I dug up their old catalogues and came across these sick hiking boots, not to mention the Hang Time – one of their classic basketball silhouettes.