Light weight and good for summer. The tongue and white part of shoe aren't made of canvas like regular Converse - this is lightweight synthetic and doesn't have the normal Converse label on tongue ... probably so you can wear them sock-less? The sole looks like Converse and we looked them up online - not fake, just different. My kid loves the fluorescent accents on these and the street no-tie shoes by Converse. (He has to tie these but he doesn't care.) Fits like Converse - they run half a size larger than your regular shoe size. If you normally wear a 7, buy a 6.5.