THE SOLE SCORE

I’ve always been a data driven person so I wanted to quantify all the shoes I’ve reviewed so I came up with the following scoring system based on five dimensions I consider important in a shoe. I wanted each metric to be as objective as possible, however, at the end of the day there’s no escaping the subjective nature of buying sneakers.

EXPLANING THE METRICS

Each metric is on a scale of 1 to 10, and the total score is simply the sum of each metric.

NOTE: The Sole Score looks at each metric in isolation and doesn’t take into account the intangible nature of sneakers. The final score doesn’t always represent how much I like a shoe in relation to each other.

COLORWAY:
The colors and color blocking. This is the most subjective of the metrics and dependent on my personal preference.

MATERIALS:
Quality of materials including tech specs. This doesn’t include my preference of materials (e.g.. I always prefer leather but this won’t be considered when another material is used).

COMFORT:
Self explanatory but I have wide and flat feet so not as objective as I’d like this metric to be.

VERSATILITY:
How versatile is the colorway and silhouette? Can I wear it for a variety of occasions?

STORYTELLING:
Does the shoe execute on the theme?

NOTE: I’ve removed ‘storytelling’ from general releases. General releases don't always need to tell a significant story so that’s only reserved for special releases and collaborations.

NOTE II: On November 6th I’ve changed the Sole Score from a scale of 1 to 5 to 1 to 10 and re-scored every shoe I’ve reviewed in the past. I was finding the 1 to 5 scale not wide enough to separate shoes that are close in certain metrics but still has a discrepancy, this resulted in many of the shoes ending up with the same score.