Good morning, folks! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. Thank you so much for rocking with your boy on this glorious Friday.
We are right on the cusp of 2,000 subs! First of all, I cannot believe that. Second of all, thank you so much. Third of all, I can’t wait to buy a couple of you a pair. And, finally, if you want to get in on this all you have to do is subscribe here.
Alrighty! Let’s get into it.
Two for the price of one
Usually, when you think about sneaker collaborations you’d think about the Off-White’s of the world. Or, you know, whatever streetwear brand you’d choose.
You never think about basketball — or sports, in general, for that matter. And you certainly never think about a collaboration between two basketball players. Brooklyn Nets stars Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant might change that soon.
The two teammates have talked about collaborating at Nike with a joint signature basketball sneaker. The New York Daily News’ Stefan Bondy has more.
Eventually, the conversation shifted toward collaboration and gained enough traction for [Nike Designer Ben] Nethongkome to tease the product. “It kind of spawned into, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we collaborated on something together in the near future?’” Nethonkome said. “And right then and there, KD was like, ‘Of course.’ So we’re excited to have some level of interaction between those two in terms of product creation in the near future.”
Now THAT is interesting. We don’t know if this will ever actually happen, but it definitely seems to be legitimately on the table. These two absolutely have the pull at Nike to get it done.
Now, with that being said, I don’t think this is the greatest idea in the world.
The entire point of a collaboration is to meld audiences together. It’s why you see an older Jordan Brand tapping into Travis Scott or a comfort brand like Crocs tapping in to Justin Bieber.
I’d bet if we drew up a Venn Diagram of Durant’s biggest fans and Irving’s biggest fans, there’d be lots of overlap there. I’m not sure how much purpose this would have.
Plus, how much do we trust Nike Basketball? It has been legitimate years since they made a signature shoe with any type of off-court appeal and that’s really the big seller. Yes, Durant and Irving are both leaders in the signature shoe market. But that’s all relative — basketball footwear sales were down 20% in July.
The market has been tanking for years and it’s largely because they’ve sacrificed aesthetic for performance. They just don’t make many street wearable things anymore. Knit material has supplanted the patent leather materials that make the classics what they are — classics.
But at the same time, that’s why this is interesting. There’s not a lot of energy around athletic gear as a whole. It’s down bad right now, plain and simple. It needs a jolt.
Could a collaboration between two athletes be the jolt Nike hoops needs? Maybe! Maybe not! All we know is it hasn’t been done before — not between two active athletes. That’s a good enough reason, to me, to try it.
This is also something that can evolve. Imagine seeing a Mookie Betts x LeBron James signature joint down the road. Or maybe Dodgers x King James. Who knows?
I would like to see it. But yo, in the meantime, let me know where to send my money for the sketches KD and Kyrie come up with. That brainstorming session is finna be TRIPPY.
Adidas and Beyoncé found a way to beat the bots
(Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash)
Beyoncé’s Ivy Park drop was a master class on how to deal with hype. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but they found a way to get gear in the hands of actual consumers.
They granted consumers two important things here — access and time. They gave people a chance to actual beat bots.
Thursday’s early access drop opened the collection up for customers hours ahead of the actual drop time.
Anyone who signed up for notifications was allowed to jump on the page with the collection at 10 am ET. Some were granted early access to products at noon and others had to wait until the actual drop at 4 pm to buy.
They could enter payment information ahead of time, cart items and get ready for checkout all in one swoop. When everything dropped all they had to was just press a button.
This worked really well. Every problem they had with January’s drop was addressed here. Ran into bot trouble last time? Cool. This time you get a head start. They were also inexplicably missing plus sizes from the collection in January. This time, they went up to 4X.
There were hiccups. There were incredibly long wait times while being processed and, when the collection opened up to the broader public at 4, things sold out quickly — partly because of the pre-sale and partly because of botting.
They found a unique way to actually give people a shot at buying things they wanted. That’s a really dope thing that we rarely see these days. Shouts to Adidas and Beyoncé.
Under Armour’s big bet on women’s basketball
Under Armour has a real chance to tap in to some untouched ground in athletes with women’s basketball. They dropped HOVR Breakthru last month — a shoe made specifically for women in hoops.
Do me a favor. Type “women’s basketball shoes” in your Google bar right now and look at what comes up.
The first results you get are basketball shoes for men. As you scroll down a bit, you do run into hoops shoes that come in women’s sizes — the LeBron 18, the Freak 2, the Kyrie 6. But these were shoes that were originally built for men.
Under Armour has a stage prepped and ready for this shoe to do well. It’ll be a feature for UA going forward with their college reps along with the athletes they’ve signed. UMD is an example here.
There are plenty of other women’s hoops teams and lady hoopers around to choose from.
I’m excited to see how people react to this thing. Again, athletics overall isn’t great right now. But this is a niche product built for a specific audience. If it does well, we’ll see a lot more of this going forward.
I’m rooting for a Under Armour W here.
A quick review of Complex’s Sneaker of the Year book
In my time off, I managed to sit myself down and administer some self care. Played lots of NBA 2k, ate some good food and did some reading.
One of the things I picked up was Complex’s Sneaker of the Year book. And, I’ll be honest, generally I hate content like this. Rankings, lists, all of it. It’s just normally boring to me.
But this was good! It was surprisingly thorough. Here’s a quick review.
This book lists what Complex’s writers call the “Sneaker of the Year” from 1985 until 2020. So, yeah, obviously lots of room for debate here.
But this book acknowledges that. It’s not just those sneakers of the year — it also featured “Honorable mentions” and what were essentially runner ups.
It had multiple authors and lots of perspective on plenty of OG silhouettes from the Jordan 1 to the Dunk to the Gel-Lyte III. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Yes, it does feel a lot like an aggregated list that you could find somewhere online. But there’s lots of detail here and, to me, that makes it worth it.
Would I go out of my way to read this? Probably not. It’s a lot if you’re not a sneakerhead. You’ve really got to be immersed in this thing to care. But if you are? It’s probably worth a look.
If you’re interested in more but want to get more of a feel for it, SoleSavy’s Alex Wong has a pretty good review here.
#TheKicksWeWear
THE VIBES. Y’ALL KNOW EM.
First, the homie Kyle popped out in the Court Vision lows. These joints are a whole vibe.
Then the homie Greer stepped out putting on for the champs with these Dodgers Vans.
My guy Josh jumped out in the Rayguns. Smoked these.
The homie Eddie Factzz jumped out in the Vapormax Plus joints. I normally ain’t riding with triple black joints but these is TORCH.
The homie Parker stunted on us in the Bred 11’s. SHEESH.
My guy Jeezy pulled out the OG Pippens. Fam, I need a pair of these joints.
The homie Hardly Clerkin jumped out in the Dior J’s. Related: I’m poor.
Then my guy Jammel jumped out in the Off White Chucks and, yes, I’m still poor.
The homie Julian jumped out in the MVP Bron 7’s and are we sure these ain’t the best 7’s? Because…
Then the homie Jimmy sent us home with this dope DIY job on the Gatorade AJ1. These are torch, bruh.
Smoked it. Again.
Thanks again for chopping it up with me today, family! I appreciate your time, as always. Y’all are the best. ❤️
We’re almost at 2K y’all! Subscribe! Ride the wave. Make sure you give yourself a chance to win these free kicks!
As always, folks. Peace and love. Be easy. Be well. Be kind.
Signing off.
—Sykes 💯
C’mon UA give us the WNBA player signature shoe we deserve! The Embiid One is getting solid reviews from hoopers, I know you can cook up something dope