The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 376 — The Donahoe era is over ✌️
Who could've seen this coming? Oh, wait. We did.
Good morning, folks! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. Thanks so much for reading today. Appreciate you! Hope you’ve got a fantastic weekend ahead of you?
Any good pickups lately? I honestly haven’t bought much over these last few weeks. I’ve been trying to relax a bit to close out the year after going a bit overboard to start 2024. We’ll see how that goes.
Let’s dive in.
The end of the Donahoe era is here
On January 15 I wrote this graf about John Donahoe as one of my five bold predictions for 2024.
John Donahoe steps down at Nike: I won’t lie. This one feels like a long shot. But, man. Don’t you just get a vibe? The Q2 earnings call wasn’t the rosiest.
How I see it: Donahoe is the head coach of Nike right now. He’s shifted a bunch of new executives into a bunch of new places and fired others. It’s just like a coach firing its offensive and defensive coordinators. Were they the problem? Were they not good enough? We’re about to find out.
John Donahoe is stepping down from his role as Nike’s CEO on October 14, the company confirmed on Thursday.
The why: Investors had no confidence in him as the company’s CEO moving forward. There’s a reason the company’s shares spiked by eight percent on Thursday after the announcement.
Considering the state of things, it’s hard to blame them.
A staggering number: Even with that spike, shares were still down 25 percent as of the market’s close on Thursday.
Nike's state isn’t up to snuff and hasn’t been for a while. This wasn’t just an opinion by some wonky sneakerhead who writes the Kicks You Wear anymore — it’d become fact.
Meanwhile, the brand’s competitors have been steadily rising. Adidas regained its footing. New Balance is trying to become a $10 billion brand. On and Hoka have a stranglehold on the running sector. Nike may have still been up, but the opposition was on the run, and the brand had nothing to stop it.
Nike’s been so far behind the 8-ball on industry trends. Things were so bad that even Bloomberg — yes, folks. Bloomberg — wrote a feature about how uncool the soon-to-be former CEO made the company.
There’s a huge problem when Bloomberg is essentially calling you a dork.
The brand needed a change in leadership. Donahoe acknowledged that himself. Now, Nike will have one.
Let’s be clear: Leadership is hard enough when there are only a few people you’re accountable for. Now, imagine being in control of a company that employs thousands and is worth billions.
John Donahoe did not have an easy job. I don’t envy him. He did it terribly, but it’s also fair to ask how many folks could’ve done it better.
Where things went wrong: There’s not just one decision that turned things upside down here. But if I had to pick one, I’d say it was committing so deeply to the dreaded DTC offensive in 2020 and beyond.
Yes, that buoyed Nike through the pandemic better than most brands. Circumstances made that a sound decision then.
But then, he also held on for too long with that strategy, costing the company dearly with its wholesale partners.
When folks went back outside, Nike felt stale and homogenous. Its presence wasn’t as felt in the community. That’s why things are where they are now. It’s why the Donahoe era is over.
What’s next: The brand called Elliott Hill out of retirement to serve as president and CEO after Donahoe steps down.
Hill spent 32 years at the brand, starting as an intern in 1988 and rising through the ranks to a role as the brand’s consumer-marketplace president across multiple continents, according to BusinessWire.
What he’s saying: Hill dished out a statement on his new role following the announcement:
“NIKE has always been a core part of who I am, and I’m ready to help lead it to an even brighter future. For 32 years, I’ve had the privilege of working with the best in the industry, helping to shape our company into the magical place it is today. I’m eager to reconnect with the many employees and trusted partners I’ve worked with over the years, and just as excited to build new, impactful relationships that will move us ahead. Together with our talented teams, I look forward to delivering bold, innovative products, that set us apart in the marketplace and captivate consumers for years to come.”
The big picture: He’s got a lot of work ahead of him. Donahoe’s tenure set the company back something serious.
He laid off thousands of employees, sued a bunch of people, emptied the brand’s retro bag, abandoned some of its most loyal wholesale partners, completely disregarded mom-and-pop shops that anchored Nike in local communities and sullied some of the brand’s most legendary silhouettes.
I don’t want to be hyperbolic and say that the damage done here might be too great to reverse. It’s Nike — the company is still the biggest, most powerful entity in footwear and one of the best marketers in the world. Anything is possible.
But this turnaround is going to take a long time. We’ll see if Hill has it in him.
In the meantime, let me know what you think. How long do you think it’ll be before Nike is finally back to being Nike.
Personally, I’m setting the over/under at three years and hammering the over.
Weird works well
I know I’ve said the New Balance 1906L just didn’t work that well for me. But, clearly, the rest of you see the vision. I thought these would reach a niche audience. I didn’t think it’d be wide enough to see sellouts and mildly hefty resale prices.
But…This shouldn’t have been surprising, if I'm honest. If you follow the trend lines, loafers have shifted from cult favorite to mainstream darling.
By the numbers: We’ve been in a bit of a formal footwear boom since 2022 and loafers have been at the center of it.
Traditional dress shoes saw double-digit growth in sales, according to data given to Glossy in 2022 by the NPD Group.
Sales of hybrid footwear combining dress shoes with sneaker soles also rose significantly in that time frame.
The backdrop: 2022 is the same year that New Balance designer Charlotte Lee and brand senior project manager Lani Perry came up with the 1906L concept.
The state of play: We live in a time when more consumers are willing to branch out and try new things. They’re willing to wear more brands and experiment with weirder silhouettes.
That was the impetus behind these shoes. Here’s more from Lee in an interview with Hypebae:
“I think that during the pandemic, everything was so uncertain that there was a return to the classics and a safety in familiarity. Then we came out of that and there’s since been this change and shift towards newness and excitement. There’s the blending of genres and with styling now, there’s people everyone’s wearing whatever they want to wear, but with a real mix of genders and subcultures and forms and fits. The sneaker industry as a whole hasn’t really caught up with that same sentiment yet. I think people are just way, way post pandemic now, which is great. We’re all willing to take more risks and to push the boundaries of that these comfort lanes that we associate with formal or sports and start to blend things more more closely and more frequently.”
That’s how you read the room, folks. Genius.
The big picture: This weird footwear fusion trendline might be sticking around with us for a while.
Even outside of New Balance, you’ve got Nike dropping clogposite GR models again and collaborating with Supreme on a pair, too. In sort of a reversal, Crocs has partnered with Salehe Bembury to turn his Pollex Clogs into actual sneakers with the Juniper.
Styles are meshing together in really weird, fun (yet, ugly) ways. Not only is it bringing more variety to the sneaker space, but it’s making it more interesting, too.
Innovation for the sake of innovation
Over the last couple of years, we’ve talked a lot about innovation when it comes to the big brands and what we’d like to see them do. I think the word has become a blanket term these days.
However, not all innovations are good. We got an example of that from Anta with its Artificial Exoskeleton.
Here’s more from Jacques Slade:
What this is: It’s a technology system designed by Anta that slides carbon fiber rods up and down the midsole to adjust for the wearer’s comfort while maintaining performance standards.
The carbon fiber would serve the same purpose as high-end running shoes and basketball shoes, but instead of being in a fixed position, it can be moved.
Wearers would use an app to control it for now, but Anta wants to eventually create technology that would allow you to move the plates with your mind. YOUR MIND, FOLKS. Trippy, right?
The tech seems to be a few years away from hitting the market, according to Slade, so it’s not quite ready yet. But it is interesting.
My take: While I do find this fascinating, I can’t help but ask myself, “Why would I ever need something like this?”
When I see this, it’s hard not to think about Nike’s now-defunct Adapt line.
The thought of self-lacing shoes was awesome! In practice, though? Laces are totally fine despite being older technology. There was never any real need for auto-lacing tech besides the function of making Marty McFly look cool.
This exoskeleton technology from Anta is the same thing to be. This sounds like it’ll do a lot. Why? Just because.
The big picture: Innovation is great. It’s necessary to push sectors forward. But, sometimes, it feels like certain ideas exist purely for the sake of that idea. This feels like one of those ideas to me.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. This could work out just fine whenever it finally hits the market. And, even if it doesn’t, it might lead to the next big thing that changes footwear forever.
I certainly won’t be finding out myself, though.
Kyrie SBs
In a bit of fun news for Anta, Kyrie Irving’s lifestyle shoe is solid.
This model is called the Kai Hela and is technically a skateboarding sneaker. It reminds me of a chunkier Van sneaker.
He revealed multiple colorways of the shoe this week with Complex.
We’ve seen lifestyle alternative models for athletes before, but they generally haven’t worked well. It’s a bit of a risk for Anta, but if it keeps Kyrie around I’m sure the brand is fine with it.
What do we think, folks?
#TheKicksWeWear
First, the homie Kali got us started with the Rare Air AJ1s and these are so clean.
My guy Jed came through with the Black Pigeon Dunks. Big shouts to Jeff Staple, man. He really did his thing with these.
The homie Jay popped out with the WYWS A Ma Maniére Jordan 4s. Y’all might’ve influenced me into these, man.
The homie Ruben popped out with these SLICK Avia 880s. My man pulled out the CLASSICS on us. Wow.
The homie Chef Doomy came through with the Whitaker Group 1906U. These look so good on foot, man.
Then homie Kev took us home with the Marvel x Kith Spiderman GT-2160s. I’m so jealous yo. I gotta cop this pack.
SMOKED THAT. We love to see it.
That’s a wrap, folks! Thanks so much for rocking with me today. Appreciate you. I hope you have a fantastic weekend.
As always, if you have any questions or comments, hit me via email at mikedsykes@gmail.com or shoot me a message here on Substack.
Let’s do this again on Monday. Until then, folks. Peace and love. Be safe, be easy, be kind. We out.
-Sykes 💯
I heard from somebody who would definitely know that there were people cheering in the Nike office when they saw the email that Donahoe was stepping down.
Nice company morale you made there, Donahoe. Don’t expect too many flowers in mid-October from the rank and file.
I still believe in Nike. They have all the top athletes (especially NBA players), and, to me, their shoes and gear are more comfortable than the competitors. Square take, I know.