I am here to help you tell the difference between a real pair of A Bathing Apes and the many, many counterfeit or "bootleg" fake Bapes. First off, to those of you not familiar with the A Bathing Ape company, let me school you on the basics. They are a luxury brand straight out of Japan. In a nutshell they mainly make sneakers that are very similar to a Nike Air Force 1 but instead of the “swoosh” at the end of the check, they have a star. So to all of you who see Bapes and just think someone’s got some real knock-off Air Forces on, now you know.

So now that you are familiar of what the typical Bape looks like, it's time for me to tell you how to discover which ones are legit and which ones aren't. Well the first and easiest thing to look for is color and material. About 90% of the Bapesta's are all completely made of patent leather. So if you see some that are just regular leather or maybe even nubuck or suede, right away that's a dead giveaway that they're fake. Also, colorways are very important.

About 80% of the Bapes that have been released are all crazy colorway combinations from graphite grey/neon green to pink/purple/orange to even colorways to commemorate Marvel Comics super heroes. So legit check number two would have to be this, if you see some all white or all black Bapes they're 100% bootleg. I'd have to say that the closest normal colorway ever produced would be the red/yellow or navy/yellow's or things along those lines. But never one colorway or even basic colorways like white/red, black/white, etc. Now comes the hard part, the boxes.

Nowadays people have the boxes manufactured almost to the dot. And this isn't just for Bapes but for Nikes and Jordans as well. If you are close enough to buying a pair and get to see the box, thoroughly examine it. Think about how a normal everyday sneaker box looks and feels. You know what size you are so add that into the comparison as well. If you are buying a size twelve but the box you get the shoes in looks like it could fix a size nine then there you go, point number three. Plus most boxes are made very poor and look very feeble in a sense. Then comes the inside of the shoe. Continued on page 2 »