I couldn’t get Bad Bunny’s pink Adidas sneakers — so I made them myself

Forget Yeezys — Bad Bunny is making some of the hottest sneakers at Adidas right now. First came a brown remix of the brand’s Forum Low silhouette, dubbed “First Café,” that saw a combination of suede and synthetic overlays. A pink “Easter egg” version followed suit, keeping the modified clasp and “Ojo” (eye) graphic Benito added to the shoe. But both iterations of the Forum Low have sold out everywhere, leaving fans shoe-less or paying upwards of $600 to buy a pair of Bad Bunny’s Forum Lows.

As much of a Bad Bunny fan that I am, I don’t have the same budget as the artist, nor the connections to hook me up with his collaborative sneaker. Nothing was going to stop me from getting my hands on his “Easter Egg” design, though — even if I had to make it myself.

Becoming the Bunny — I was able to land a pair of Adidas’ classic Forum Low design, which slightly differs from Benito’s model. His boasts a plush double tongue, added rubber heel bumper, translucent midsole, and altered buckle strap alongside details like his Ojo graphic and “Yo Visto Así” note. Most of those features either couldn’t be added or remade on what I had, so I basically just sought to repaint the shoe in the same pink shades Bunny had picked out himself. It wouldn’t look exactly the same, but with Benito, it’s all about the vibras anyway.

The pair I had came with light pink details, saving me from working too much on the tongue or suede accents which came dressed in a pink similar to Bunny’s. Still, I had never repainted sneakers before, and sought out professional advice from a local leather tanning store. There, I picked up an alcohol solution to clean the shoes of their factory finish and a slew of coral, pink, and tan leather paints to decorate my Forum Lows with.

Once home, I de-laced the sneakers and rubbed them with a cotton ball soaked in the alcohol solution to make sure the leather paints would adhere. Deciding which paints would go where was a challenge, though — while the process had seemed easy while picking out the shades in the leather store, staining the leather shoes with the paints made the decision much more permanent. Much like a color-by-number puzzle, I began mapping out which shades would go where by keeping a picture of the actual “Easter Egg” sneaker while I painted.

The painstaking process left me with more appreciation for sneaker customizers.

To ensure the paints didn’t take on a shade too dark, I mixed them with water while decorating the shoes — you can always add more color but you can’t take it away. The painstaking process left me with more appreciation for sneaker customizers: between mapping out the colors and painting cautiously around the edges, it took me about six hours to complete both shoes.

El Conejo Falso — Looking at the finished product in my kitchen seemed to highlight the brush strokes on the shoe, the slight difference in color, and of course, the silhouette wasn’t exactly like Bad Bunny’s. But they weren’t as bad as I secretly wanted them to turn out — thinking Benito would take pity on me and send me a real pair — and wearing them on-foot only made the sneakers look more like the originals. After all, no one is really inspecting your kicks from up close.

They weren’t as bad as I secretly wanted them to turn out.

If you don’t mind putting in the time and effort to customize your own Bad Bunny sneakers, the end result is pretty deceiving — and more cost-efficient. A typical Forum Low pair runs for $90 on Adidas’ website, and the alcohol solution and paints in total cost me around $20 at the local leather store. Rather than paying $600 for Benito’s “Easter Egg” sneaker — or over $2,000 for his “First Café” pair — consider making your own for $110. YHLQMDLG, but unfortunately, not all of us have the ganas to spend so much on sneakers.