<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  NBA style, like the league itself, is constantly evolving. Shorts get baggier, arms get tattoo-ier \u2014 organic reflections of the changin&amp;#039; times. Every so often the pendulum of taste swings back to the past and we get throwback jerseys, say, or old school logos. But the vintage look that&amp;#039;s currently thriving has nothing to do with apparel. It appears that the hi-top fade is experiencing a revival. The cut first came onto the scene in the latter third of the 1980s, scraping the ceiling in videos from Kid &amp;#039;n Play, Big Daddy Kane, and, yes, even Grace Jones. The hoopsters of this era who rocked the look included Kenny &amp;quot;Sky&amp;quot; Walker, J.R. Reid, Charles Smith, and Dominique Wilkins. By the time the mid-90&amp;#039;s rolled around, the hi-top went the way of the short shorts, giving way to subtler fades, cornrows, or whatever Dennis Rodman was doing. It seemed to be heady days of the hi-top were over.  From left: J.R. Reid, Kenny Walker, Charles Smith  But thanks to a crop of young studs equipped with a keen sense of American hairstory, the hi-top fade is back and, frankly, it&amp;#039;s beautiful. (As a young bald, I&amp;#039;m in favor of most hair-related trends, if for no other reason than unadulterated envy. My hair options have been reduced to hat or no hat). Brandon Jennings was among the first to revive it, Norris Cole has been hi-topping since college, and Iman Shumpert cultivated his fade while recovering from knee surgery earlier this year, noting that &amp;quot;the ladies like it&amp;quot;. Indeed \u2014 how else could a dork like Gumby land a babe like &amp;amp;lt; target=&amp;quot;_blank&amp;quot;&amp;amp;gt;Goo? Shump is even using his coiffure as advertising space, having recently carved the Adidas symbol into his head. Gotta respect that entrepren-hair-ship (sorry, it had to be done). Inevitably, this fade fad will be eclipsed by the next wave in ironic hoop hairdos (mullet, anyone? Side of muttonchops?) so enjoy it while it lasts \u2014 anything that evokes the seminal 1990 film House Party is fine by me. Now excuse me while I binge on Bobby Brown tunes and shave the Esquire logo into what little hair I have left. Adam Lustick is a comedian based in Los Angeles. You can follow him on Twitter, here. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/style/grooming/a31297/hi-top-fade-basketball-042413/>