The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 351 — Kanye is wearing Nike again 😳
But don't read too deeply into it. Plus, A'ja Wilson FINALLY breaks some good news for us.
Goooood morning, family! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. Thank you so much for rocking with me today. Appreciate you! Hope you had an excellent weekend and I hope all the mothers out there had a fantastic Mother’s Day. Love y’all, man. Big shouts to my momma, too.
In my cart 🛒: Nothing in the cart this week! Didn’t see anything I wanted. This is a reminder that you don’t always have to buy a pair whenever you see it.
On my radar 👀: The Skepta x Puma Forever “Black” joints are INCREDIBLE. I’m just never paying $800 resale for them. I’ll have to admire them from afar.
Poll results: 96 of you voted in the KYW poll on Nigel Sylvester’s upcoming Jordan 4 RM (a homie at the brand informed me that it’s technically NOT a low!). Most of you seem to be rocking with these.
49 percent of you said they were good!
Another 29 percent of you said they were fine, but you’d probably pass on them.
15 percent of you said they were awful and that they need to be kept far away from you. Fair enough! More for the rest of us.
Thanks for voting! Alrighty. Let’s jump in.
Ye x Cactus Jack
Seeing Kanye West wearing anything with a swoosh on it feels like living in the Upside Down. Alas. Here I am waiting for Vecna to turn me into a pretzel.
What happened: West appeared in a commercial for Travis Scott’s latest University Red Jumpman Jack silhouette. Scott posted the video on his Instagram account just before his sneaker’s launch on May 10.
The video consists essentially of cutaways of different close-ups of West. The shoe appears briefly in the video before cutting back to Kanye.
There are also promotional images out there with West wearing the shoes outright. It looks so bizarre.
Between the lines: Predictably, this led to speculation that West might be headed back to Nike.
People are always going to connect the puzzle pieces even when there’s not necessarily any connection. They see an old Nike affiliate in Kanye West in a commercial for the brand’s next big thing and he’s wearing Nike again. Of course, this was going to lead to speculation.
*whispers* It also doesn’t help that Nike isn’t the healthiest and could use a boost from somewhere.
But let’s be real: Don’t let any of those discord dorks tell you this means anything more than it does. That boost is not coming from Kanye West, folks. It’s not happening. It doesn’t take too much to figure out here that this is just Travis Scott tapping in with his friend.
That was a Cactus Jack commercial you watched — not a Nike one.
The video did not contain Swoosh branding. You saw only Scott’s logo throughout it — even on the sneakers.
The Jumpman Jack's University Red colorway is a Travis Scott exclusive. It won’t be on SNKRS, and Nike has nothing to do with the product's promotion.
That means Travis Scott can promote his product however he wants. He chose to tap Kanye West to model it. That’s all there is to it.
The bottom line: Don’t hold your breath waiting for a Kanye West and Nike reunion. Casting moralities and ethics aside for a second (which, you know, is a HUGE roadblock here), working with Kanye isn’t smart from a business standpoint.
He’s unstable. You never know what you’re going to get with West. We’ve seen all the reports on how hard this guy is to work with. Nobody is signing up for that. Nike’s employees are already angry enough these days.
Plus, we all saw how he destroyed his deals with Adidas and GAP. You think Nike wants those problems? Right now? Come on. Be for real.
It’s best to let go of those hopes of an Air Yeezy revival. It ain’t happening, folks.
A’t last
It’s about damn time, man. A’ja Wilson’s signature shoe is on the way.
The news: Wilson worked with Nike to unveil the news ahead of a Saturday exhibition game at South Carolina. The brand leaned into the fact that everyone has been begging for this news for the last two years.
Wilson pulled up to the game in a crop-top hoodie that read, “Of Course, I have a shoe dot com.”
That website takes you here, which leads you to a lengthy copy that essentially poses the question, “You thought we’d sleep” on A’ja Wilson?” The answer is yes, by the way. More on that later.
The details: The sneaker, dubbed the A’One (awesome name, btw), will be released in 2025 likely ahead of the WNBA season.
Nike had the idea of an A’ja shoe after her first championship in 2022, per Boardroom’s Nick DePaula. The brand approached her with the idea in February 2023. The shoe has been in development since.
Wilson has been working on the design with Ben Nethongkome, who has worked with Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Devin Booker, Sabrina Ionescu, and others.
The reason the reveal took so long is that Wilson wanted it to. In an interview with the Las Vegas Journal Review’s Callie Lawson-Freeman, she revealed she wanted to “control the narrative” of her sneaker by keeping things close to the vest.
And, in a way, I guess she did just that. She let us know about the shoe when she was ready. The design process is over and, now, it’s on to marketing and development. That’s the good news in all this.
Yes, but… Am I the only one a little confused by the marketing campaign here? The “You really thought we weren’t going to do this?” angle of all this and poking fun at the fans just clamoring to support her feels weird.
It’s one thing to acknowledge the demand behind the product that was so very clearly there. It’s another to make fun of people for wanting it so bad.
That’s what this campaign was. Nike even bookmarked old tweets begging for an A’ja Wilson shoe and replied with the link. I know this because the brand did it to me.
This is one of the most petty marketing tactics I’ve seen. It’s teetering the line in dunking on supporters. It’s all in fun, sure. But it was just kind of strange to me.
The reality: Yes, people legitimately thought the brand overlooked the best player in the WNBA. Signature sneakers for two unproven athletes were announced before we heard about hers.
Considering how long Nike has overlooked women—especially Black women—in the space, the concern is reasonable. I don’t think that’s something to poke fun at.
The big picture: I won’t complain too much. Ultimately, A’ja Wilson is finally getting the sneaker we’ve all wanted. That’s what matters most here. I can’t wait to see them.
The Kobe-fication of Nike basketball continues
Speaking of Nike basketball, mock-ups of Sabrina Ionescu’s second signature shoe releasing soon have surfaced. It looks very familiar.
What’s happening: Instagram sneaker leaker Kicksaloulou2 shared this look at the model on their page.
That’s supposedly the Sabrina 2, which is reportedly releasing next month. To me, the model looks a lot like the Kobe 5. Here’s a look at a Lakers colorway of that model.
Throw a Mamba logo on that joint and it’s a Kobe. For me, that’s a double-edged sword.
On one hand: Nike going back to the Kobe well makes sense. It’s worked. Sabrina is a huge Kobe fan — she saw him as a mentor. It plays into her story.
On the other hand: How many more Kobe-like models can we have before it becomes enough? It’s just not interesting or creative. Nike’s competitors are beating it in that space. The brand needs to step up.
Nike needs to find a balance here. I think these should do well but, hopefully, we get a bit more creativity moving forward.
Tim Cook’s boring Air Max 1
The Air Max 1 is one of the most iconic shoes Nike has ever produced. There are so many things you can do with it. There are so many design choices you can make that will have that sneaker popping.
So, of course, Nike’s custom 1 of 1 sneaker for Apple CEO Tim Cook looks like this:
BOR-RING.
Cook debuted these during an unveiling of Apple’s new iPad last week and, man, they’re so uninspiring.
Definitely appropriate for Apple. What version of the same iPhone are y’all on right now? Shoutout to all my green bubble folks out there. May we continue to bring chaos to all the group chats.
What’s droppin’, bruh?
Puma Stewie 3 “Dawn” — Tuesday, May 14
Nike Air Terra Humara “Alchemy Pink” — Tuesday, May 14
Victor Wembanyama x Nike GT Hustle 2 — Wednesday, May 15
Puma LaFrancé Amour — Friday, May 17
Travis Scott x Air Jordan 1 Low “Canary” — Friday, May 17
That’s a wrap, folks! Thanks so much for reading. Y’all are the best. Have a fantastic week.
Let’s do this again on Friday. Until then, folks. Peace and love. Be easy, be safe, be kind. We out.
-Sykes 💯
I was confused by the marketing push for A'ja's shoe too. Nike not reading the room. Don't snark at people when there's almost a quarter century of evidence to back up the cynicism that yes, people worried Nike would sleep on an A'ja signature. Glad it's finally happening though, and that the belated announcement was A'ja's preference.