 I'm Brian Sokawa, you're watching He Spoke Style. So on May 3rd, we recorded a video comparing the Common Project's original Achilles Lo with the Coyote Capri triple white that was on May 3rd. And then we published that video just a few days ago on May 12th. So recorded May 3rd published on May 12th. In that time between May 3rd and May 12th, there's another video that went up on YouTube that kind of went viral and also was about the Common Projects that was in comparison with Coyo. This video is by Rose Anvil and I had not heard of it, though I certainly heard about it when we published our video because so many of you were talking about it in the comments. So apparently in this video he rips apart a pair of Common Projects and goes through every single little detail and exposes the brand supposedly as being a fraud not using the highest quality materials and basically just putting it out there for everyone to see right like that. So what I thought I'd do if you haven't seen that video, I'm going to watch it today and react along with it and you guys can watch it along with me. If you've seen it already, let's watch it again together. This should be cool. I've always interested in seeing the inner workings of things. I don't do it myself but this seems really interesting and I'm pretty excited to watch it. So let's get to it. Those look nice. Today I'm cutting open the Common Projects to check out the leather quality and see if they live up to the hype and that steep price tag. I'm guessing not. These have been some of the more requested sneakers in the comment section. So what do you guys want to see next? I've got Birkenstocks on the way and a lot of people have been requesting the Air Force Ones. Which color do you guys want me to do? Just the all white again, kind of like the all white theme we have going here with the sneakers and it's time to announce the winner of the Shattered Backboard Wall. And the winner is... Who is the winner? Who won? Diego197501. Congratulations Diego. The brand is Common Projects. The model is the Achilles Low. The color is white. They're made in Italy and they cost around $4.5 online. Supposedly they don't spend any money on advertising and marketing. I've never seen ads. My initial wear impressions of these, they are definitely narrow as... I don't mind them being narrow. I know a lot of you guys in the comments of the Common Projects Coyote video were mentioning that the last seems narrow. I have a narrow foot so not a problem for me. To be expected from any style like this. They fit true to size and the only thing I was kind of bothered by was my foot is sliding around all over the place in here because of the smooth leather on the lining and on the insole. That's not really something I noticed. The initial impressions when I first got these and opened up the box, the red flags were just going up all over the place. What were those red flags? So let's start dissecting these and start addressing some of those red flags. So the first red flag, when I opened this box I expected to see and smell that Primo Italian vegetable tanned leather but instead I saw these little cross sections and the heel here blue on the inside of the other. And that is a telltale sign of a chrome tanned leather which is faster to produce, cheaper to produce and generally accepted that it's a lower quality than a vegetable tanned leather. It's not always the case but I thought. Interesting I didn't know that. Also let's note the cat one more time. Maybe just these smaller pieces might be just a cheaper chrome tanned leather and these bigger panels are a higher quality Italian veg tanned. So let's cut this toe open and the tongue and see hopefully that's veg tanned. Have you ever wanted to do this? My god. Sound is really good with the disassembly. So it is as I feared it's chrome tanned on the tongue. That's amazing that he could tell that from just the smell and opening it up. Well he also mentioned that it was blue. Now I want to look at mine to see if there's blue on them. And on the liner the tongue is 1.5 millimeters and the liner is 1 millimeter even. When I saw the chrome tanned I was concerned so I called up Rocky Mount Leather down in Salt Lake and asked them to send me their high quality all-white leather samples for me to show you guys the difference between a cheaper chrome tanned leather or just chrome tanned in general and a high quality veg tanned. So they sent me this piece of Italian veg tanned and they sent me this swatch of French goat skin and if you look at the cross section on the goat skin you can see there's no blueing in there and it's just an even color all the way through. And if you look at the Italian cow leather you see there's no blueing in there either and the blue comes from the tanning process. The chromium salts they use to turn the flesh into leather is what turns it blue and chrome tanned leather isn't all bad some of the best some of my favorite leather, Horwien's Chrome XL is a combination tan that's chrome tanned and then re-tanned and vegetable tanning compounds and it works really good for work boots like iron rangers is an oil. I'm wondering if it's not so bad then what what the issue is so I'm sure we're going to find out tan leather which is basically a chrome tanned leather with a lot of oils infused into it it's really durable it's more water resistant and it's kind of a self-conditioning leather so for a work application chrome tanned leather is really good. I think it's not fair to compare like a work boot to a sneaker but I guess we're talking about the differences in the quality of leather and the price so maybe it's fair. For sneakers when you're not needing those properties it's usually a cheaper way of getting around making leather products. So next let's see what's on the side panels and what kind of counter is on the heel. I want to get these tools and get an old pair of sneakers and rip them up like this must be really satisfying to do though like the watch that I took apart you can't put this back together. So it is the same leather that's on the side panels that tongue everything everything's a chrome tanned but the counter is a compressed leather counter I did a quick burn test on it it's self extinguished and smelled like burning flesh so it's a good science leather but it is a compressed leather so it's the extra loose fibers reconstituted into a material for the counter it's not a solid piece of leather and then the one thing is that like a cost saving measure is they flip that last piece at your heel to the flesh out so those that fuzziness is hitting your heel that makes it so your heel doesn't slip as much and makes it easier to break in without getting blisters on your heel. Next we're gonna test to see if this construction on the side here these stitches are the only thing holding the sole on or if there's if it's also glued as well. That's satisfying that's like popping the bubble wrap not a whole lot of glue at least from the sidewall so that's good it looks like there is some glue and the sole I think I like that more though because if you need to re-sole these and it was glued all the way around you would be tearing up this sidewall and it might not look as good afterwards because with the leather have you ever thought about re-soling sneakers I never have like this with a heavy finish on the leather you don't actually pull the glue away from the leather you're pulling the top layer of paint away from the leather and that makes it really ugly it just makes it easier and cheaper to re-sole and actually make a re-sole possible and I also did a durometer test on the sole compared to the converse and the vans because this feels really soft and the results of the test is tell us you will move the converse where 22 to 25 the vans were 18 to 20 ish and the common projects were 12 to 14 never worn vans worn common projects worn converse converse I will say definitely the the sole lasts a very very long time it does feel a lot harder whereas the common projects are definitely softer that wears down much faster but I have to say that converse I don't find to be comfortable at all so significantly softer so this is going to wear out more but it's also going to be a little bit more grippy and a little bit more comfortable so the next question I have is which or what part of the cross section of the height is this leather from is it the best stuff the full grain is it top grain or is it the split portion so this was the thing that I think people were harping on the most in the comments is that the the leather quality so I'm interested to find out what he discovers here the best way to tell usually is just to look at the cross section so if you look at like this veg tan from rocky mountain leather you can see that grain pattern at the very top but I can't really tell on these ones so an even better way to tell is just to bend the leather and take small slices out of it and see what's exposed do it so if we do this on the full grain Italian veg tan leather the first cut I'm just removing that top layer of the pigment and you're exposing a different colored grain and then the next cut we're getting into the grain next cut we're starting to see those pores in the dark spots that's really interesting we finally get to that fibrous layer that's in that split portion contrasted against the cheap aj1 leather that's a split leather with a top layer of plastic on top and take that first cut and remove that plastic and we're immediately to our super fibrous split layer and then if we go to the common projects the first layer we're pulling off that top layer finish and then it looks like we're a little bit into the grain maybe just that cut seems a little deeper than the first one you did on the the first leather a small layer of grain and then we get to the really fibrous layer so my best guess is that this is from the top grain area like a more poorer top grain and maybe this is a younger cow like yearling or calf skin so they don't have a stick of a grain so it's not the best leather it's okay not the best not the worst so not full grain which would be the best now let's check out the insole or the insert and see what's going on in there I love the sound wise doing this I thought this would hurt more but they're not my shoes so it's cool ah there's the cat so the insert is the chrome tan leather on top and then a layer of poron underneath this tail layer poron's just a better foam it's more shop shock absorbent and I also see some little brass nails in here nails cut the rest of it in half now to see what else is going on inside there Simba this wasn't good back to the sneakers okay we got a cut in half let's see what's inside yes that's cool what happens all these after it's strange there's a shank in here a metal shank I have no idea what its purpose is so let's tear the rest of it out and see what's going on I want to know what the purpose of the shank is what else is in here that's interesting I'm trying to remember if I've taken these to the airport and had to take them off would this set the alarm off it's the same seem very satisfying this shoe is very perplexing it's really strange so let's go through the layer starting with the sole you've got the rubber cup sole that was glued on and stitched on then you've got a little layer of foam which they assume acts as a slip sole then you've got the compressed cardboard above that you've got the shank which I don't know why there's a shank in here it's very strange to me is that common for shoes to have shanks in them like that above that you've got the text on fiber board and then we've been through the rest oh and I forgot to mention the brass lasting nails so the heel must be hand lasted it's cool it just seems strange to me that you achieve out on some of the materials on the inside but hand lasted with brass nails yeah what's a common project shoe is it worth the $450 it's a really strange shoe I don't I don't fully understand but like we saw with the Knicks handmade ultimate work boot this is around the same price I have a hard time believing that this takes as much time and money and energy to produce as this totally agree and I that's exactly what I was talking about it being you're paying the luxury tax for this shoe whether or not it's full grain leather or you know better quality of materials on the inside and there weren't some like strange construction issues it's a luxury brand and it's marketed as a luxury brand so you're paying that that luxury price tag whether it's worth it or not I don't think it's the worst that's out there it just kind of feels like a cheap shoe posing or pretending to be an expensive shoe isn't that a lot of luxury stuff though you know there's little aspects of it that you might associate with a premium shoe but all the materials are not great so what would I do to make this a premium shoe worthy of $425 price tag or yes tell us the same price of these Knicks I would just load it up full leather get rid of all these cheap materials I have a leather insole leather midsole get rid of the shank and actually make the upper out of a higher quality leather and then I think you'd have a an expensive premium shoe that would last a long time that makes total sense to me and I am curious as to the thinking of the founders of common projects because they don't market it really it's just kind of become this cult thing based on quality but obviously as we can see here it's not totally the quality that maybe people want to believe let me know what you guys think am I off on this one would you pay $425 for cardboard and cardboard and cheap chrome tan leather I don't think that's quite fair to put it that way but I get what you're doing maybe one day I'll make a premium yeah I'll buy it shoe that's like my dream is to to just do small batch production of like ultra high-end stuff so maybe one day so thanks for your guys support if you haven't subscribed consider subscribing and I like that the cat is a recurring feature of his videos I'm gonna watch more of them so that was very insightful and instructive to me I don't have the depth of knowledge to assess leathers in that way or construction or know what it means I'm really excited to watch some more of his videos to get inside other different other shoes other different shoes that makes a lot of sense but I don't know so the main reason I was curious to see this is well one you guys were all over this video in the comments I don't know that it level sorry I don't know that it maybe warranted the level of I wouldn't say hate that I was getting in the comments but you know I guess some people like to say haha you're you're done for buying that and now I know this and I'm smart and and you're not listen like people buy things for different reasons and if they have the money and they want to spend the money on that you know that's fine it's good to know where things come from and how they're made and this is definitely very eye-opening for me for me though these shoes as I said in the previous video they're the third pair that I've owned and I've always had good luck with them I have a narrow foot so they fit me really well the sole I like he says does wear out a lot quicker than something like a converse but I haven't had that many problems with them they they have lasted three and a half years for me the koios are just as good I think I would like to see him compare the common projects and the koios to see whether they're really all that different on the inside I'm certainly not going to cut up my pair of koios but this was a really interesting video very educational and enlightening and entertaining too so let me know what you guys thought of this down below in the comments if you saw this video before what do you think about it and yeah let's just have a conversation about this because I think we're having a good conversation over in that the video for the koi and common projects but this is definitely very interesting so comments down below thumbs up don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell so you get notified every time we publish a new video let me know if you'd like to see other videos like this I understand that I'm not the best reactor but anyway until next time everyone thanks for watching and stay tailored