A Tribute to Our Friend, Gary Warnett

Trying to accurately convey how amazing Gary Warnett was is an impossible task. Ironically, the best person to write this would have been Gary himself, but his modest and self-deprecating manner would never tell you the whole story.

Gary’s passion for everything was incredibly infectious. Pick the most obscure topic and you could still guarantee that Gary would enthusiastically impart some of his wisdom. He certainly knew about footwear, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Over the years, Gary’s talent for engaging with people became a precious and valued commodity. As a result, he worked on a huge number of different projects, for a wide variety of companies and publications. Supreme, Nike, Stussy, Complex, Sneaker Freaker, Fuct… In fact, you could name any credible brand from the past forty years and there’s a good chance that Gary had worked with them.

His involvement with Crooked Tongues in the early-mid 2000s turned an online resource into an unequalled encyclopaedia of cultural knowledge. In more recent years, Gary became well known for his personal blog, Gwarizm.com. There are no fancy illustrations or animations on there: it’s simply Gary’s thoughts, opinions and words, posted on a generic template. Yet it remains the best of its kind.

To say that he made an impact is a huge understatement. He was a writer – one of the best that our generation has seen – but his outreach went far beyond his written words. Gary was as equally captivating in person as his words are on screen. A quick look online will soon show you just how much everyone loved and respected him.

To know that we’ll never see him at an event or hear his enthusiastic chatter as we walk into the office is incredibly hard to comprehend.

But we’re lucky enough that Gary’s thoughts and writings are still here, everywhere – and for that, we’re incredibly grateful.

We’ll miss you, Gary, but your words will live on forever.

R.I.P G!

Chris, Ry, Elsey, Shez, Will, Ben, Nat, Elliot, Louis, Rory & Scott