The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 378 — Beyoncé is back at it again 🐝
But, this time, we're not talking sneakers
Gooood morning, family! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. Thanks so much for rocking with me today. Appreciate you giving me a bit of your time.
Shoutout to everyone heading to Detroit this weekend for the Black Footwear Forum! I’ve really got to make it out there one of these years, man. Seems like a blast every time. I just know I’m missing out on a ton. Maybe next year.
Let’s jump in.
Embracing Cowboy Carter
The Country Music Awards weren’t rocking with Beyoncé this summer, but Levi’s won’t be as foolish.
What’s happening: The brand teased an upcoming partnership with Beyoncé on Instagram.
The post included imagery of a woman wearing a cowboy hat and riding a horse. Its caption says, “INTRODUCTION: A New Chapter.” This is the brand alluding to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album.
And if you didn’t believe it from the imagery alone, check to see who Levi’s tagged in the post. You guessed it — it’s Beyoncé.
What this means: Beyoncé and Levi’s have a collaboration coming. We can safely assume that denim will be involved. We’re getting jeans, folks. Duh.
Beyoncé has a bit of a history with denim projects. She previously owned the House of Dereon and produced a denim Ivy Park line with Adidas. That history there, along with the Cowboy Carter album, are the throughlines for this collaboration.
Investors seem to like it, too — Levi’s had a small 1 percent pop in shares after this post, according to CNBC.
Yes, but: While this is cool, I also can’t shake the fact that Ivy Park crashed so spectacularly with Adidas. After a strong start, sales plummeted by 50 percent in 2022 and continued to crater until she left the brand at the end of 2023.
Part of that (I’d argue a large portion) was on Adidas and the chaos that swirled around the brand. Another part of that was that Beyoncé was not the best collaborator.
The collaboration wasn’t particularly marketed well or with any specific aesthetic in mind. The designs felt repetitive despite having different themes surrounding them.
We also hardly saw Beyoncé in the brand or openly promoting it outside of marketing materials. When you think of Rihanna, she’s always in Fenty. Kanye used to always be in Yeezy. Beyoncé is rarely ever seen. That’s why it’s a big deal when she makes an appearance. But, even when she was outside, she wasn’t always in Ivy Park.
Don’t get it twisted: That doesn’t mean this is doomed to fail.
Levi’s isn’t a footwear brand, so some of those same problems Adidas had won’t persist here. There are also some things unique to the brand that I think put this collaboration in a position to succeed.
The aesthetic: This Levi’s drop should have that Cowboy Carter aesthetic, through and through. There’s no debating what the vibe is. Unlike Ivy Park, this should be more focused.
The audience: Ivy Park catered to too many audiences. Everything was seemingly made for everybody. That’s good, but again, it’s unfocused. I don’t think she’ll make that same mistake here with Levi’s.
The promotion: Considering that Beyoncé is still in Cowboy Carter mode and making various appearances here and there, we should see her around plenty in whatever Levi’s products are coming with this.
Distribution: Levi’s is a classic North American brand with a massive wholesale channel ranging from different mall department stores to its own brick-and-mortar infrastructure. This shouldn’t just be a direct-to-consumer thing like Ivy Park was.
If those things are taken care of, then this should go pretty well.
Your thoughts on Nike’s future
On Monday, I asked you, if you were in Elliott Hill’s shoes as the new CEO of Nike, what would be your priorities for your first six months on the job?
The why: I specified six months for a reason.
As I wrote on Monday, I believe the solutions Nike should be thinking long and hard about are short-term solutions that can stop the brand’s current free fall.
Plus, that first six months will be a pivotal period in agenda-setting for the brand for years to come.
Your answers: You all had some pretty interesting things to say about what should come next for Nike. Here are some responses:
These responses have been lightly edited for spelling and grammar.
Make the Kobe line a strength, one reader says. I love the specificity here, though there’s a Jordan Poole stray that hurts my heart:
“Lean into the Kobe line. The limited drops of the prized models (4, 5 and 6) just infuriate and alienate people. Bring them back to the Nike By You. Nike took a decent first step with the release of the Team Bank 8 release recently, which folks can actually find at the Nike Outlets. I know the Kobe line is complicated due to the past with Vanessa Bryant and his estate, but Kobe is one of the few athletes that can currently cross multiple generations.
They can tie this into the Caitlin Clark hype train until her signature model is ready. She's worn Kobe 5s and 6s and has been rocking some sweet PEs lately. Make those PEs available or, like above, bring back Nike By You so folks can create an approximation of those models. The Wemby PE of the GT Hustle was fun, but what's the best PE on the horizon? The GT Cut by Jordan Poole? Seriously?
Nike's had some bad luck with its signature athletes lately. Both Ja [Morant] and Zion [Williamson] make more news off the court than on the court, which makes their bungling of the Book 1 release even more egregious. The Ja's have had a new colorway every week, it seems like (and some bangers for sure), while Book's best models are still the PEs. Nike seems to only release Book 1s based on a snake theme (see the "Rattlesnake" and "Light Ore Brown" models).”Tackle recreational sports, one reader says. This one is for you, pickleball fiends:
“You touched on it with sports outside of basketball, like soccer, but I would look at all of the recreational players right now. America is more active than it has been in decades. Nike has done a great job of capturing the running wave over and over, so why not look to other sports and lean in heavily? The ship has sailed on running thanks to On, Brooks, Hoka, and even startup brands like Tracksmith and Bandit, at least for now. Go after tennis/pickleball/padel! That look is such a vibe, especially if you add a more urban flair to it, like Agassi did back in the day. Don't just re-release those slightly dated neon colors, but create the new wave!”Cut down on product offerings, another reader says. I love this point.
“Try to get the swag back. That starts with the people. There was a mass exodus of key Nike employees that knew what the secret sauce was. Hopefully, with Elliott back, the others will come back too.
I also believe they need to trim their product offerings and focus on a few key new models (performance & casual). I've noticed a lack of collaborations for Nike's performance models (besides Basketball), whereas other brands have collabs on their new runners, for example. I know Nike is trying to focus more on their Running category, so to create awareness and "hype" to the performance models perhaps a collab is needed in that space. I'm an avid runner that runs in Nike shoes and they do have good offerings, they just don't market them enough to the average Joe.”
Fantastic ideas. Nike should be hitting some of you up, as far as I’m concerned.
Jaylen Brown’s new venture
Jaylen Brown is finally spilling the deets on his new signature shoe.
The details: The sneaker we’ve seen Brown gallivanting around the globe in all summer long is called the Rover.
It’s being launched under Brown’s 741 brand, his independent venture.
The Rover’s debut “Black Moon” colorway is already available for preorder with a ship date in late November.
Only men’s and kids’ sizing are available. The smallest adult size is a men’s 7 and goes up to a men’s 16. Big kids sizing is available from size 3 to 6.5.
Men’s pairs cost $200, which is a bit steep. But it’s offset by the pricing on kids’ pairs, which is $70.
A look: The promotional images look incredible. A knit shroud covers the upper and the bejeweled pieces in the upper accent it. It’s great.
The purpose: This shoe was very clearly meant to look good. Part of the brand’s mission statement is to “empower athletes and provide consumers with quality, stylish designs that elevate performance on and off the field.” It wants to perform well but also wants to look good. I’d say it has that covered. It looks better than 95 percent of the signature basketball models today.
My take: But the performance part is what will make or break this shoe here. As amazing as it looks, it has to perform well, too. And it has to do it, specifically, to the standard Brown needs it to.
Jaylen Brown is one of the best athletes in the world. The best athletes require the best equipment to perform well. These shoes have to be that.
I don’t doubt that Brown and the people around him put a lot of hard work and effort into making these perform as best as they possibly can. But I also know making a good performance shoe takes a lot of expertise.
I believe 741 did its best at that, but did it do a better job than one of the big brands Brown could’ve signed with? That’ll be a question we answer as the season goes along.
As I discussed with the good folks at Andiem, a shoe that tries to serve too many purposes probably doesn’t serve any of those purposes to the best of its ability. So that does give me a bit of pause.
The bottom line: This is an ambitious endeavor from Brown that he didn’t pull off just to rake in more cash. This whole time he’s made clear that he believes the performance basketball footwear market needed a shake-up and he’s attempting to bring it.
No matter what the results of this process for Brown are, I must say, I respect that. A lot.
Kai Cenat is a double agent
I told y’all that Asics was cooking with gas, didn’t I? Kai Cenat, being devastated on stream about not being able to wear Asics because of his Nike deal genuinely had me cracking up this week.
“Asics not a athletic brand, right?” he said. My boy. Do I have some news for you.
Let’s be real: I cannot imagine that Nike was thrilled about this. Cenat fawning over rival brand — even if it’s a distant one — isn’t what any brand wants to see.
At the same time, this won’t matter. He’s way too popular for Nike to ever think about dropping. He probably got a sternly worded phone call from this. Or maybe it was a text or email. Either way, he probably brushed it off.
What makes this 10 times funnier is that, days later, Cenat appeared as the face of the brand’s latest DotSwoosh campaign surrounding a new pair of Air Max 1s coming in October.
While watching that, though, I could only think about how badly he wanted those Asics. I guess I’m the problem.
#TheKicksWeWear
First, the homie Nick came through with the Slime AE1s. These joints are sick. I know some people are sick of the AE 1 colorways, but man. I find it hard to complain about these.
The homie Floyd came through with the Neckface SB Dunks. LOVE these joints. Shoutout to my guy, Neckface.
The homie Rohan came through with an insane pull. The Air Max Plus TNPO. These are pretty sick.
My guy Higher Lxng came through with the WYWS A Ma Maniére 3s. The more I see em, the more I like em. These are good, folks.
Speaking of Jordan 3s, the homie Gary came through with the Nina Chanel joints. Can y’all believe these also dropped this year? Sneaker of the Year debates are going to be hectic.
Then the homie Alex closed us out with ALL the Grateful Dead Dunks. These still go CRAZY. Man.
That’s a wrap, folks. Y’all SMOKED that. Good lookin’.
Thanks so much for reading! Appreciate y’all. Have a fantastic weekend. If you’ve got any question, comments or concerns feel free to hit me via email at mikedsykes@gmail.com or shoot me a message here on Substack.
Until next time. Peace and love. Be safe, be easy, be kind. We out.
-Sykes 💯