The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 402 — Nike gets a layup
NikeSKIMS should be a W. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves with it.
Good morning, folks! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. Thanks so much for stopping by today. Appreciate your time.
All-Star weekend was a blast! I’ll recap more on that later. In the meantime, I’ve copped so much in these last few days.
I picked up:
The Joe FreshGoods “Aged Well” New Balance 992
The Bricks & Wood “A Different Bounce” New Balance 1000
An All-Star Weekend exclusive Shai Gilgeious-Alexander Converse hoodie.
The Adidas Harden Vol. 9 (Not here just yet)
So much for a slow start to the new year for yerboi.
Anyway, let’s dive in.
NikeSKIMS shouldn’t be able to fail
The new merger announced between Nike and Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS brand has worlds of potential.
The details: Nike and SKIMS officially announced this move at the top of last week. While it isn’t all that complicated, it is a massive one.
This isn’t the sort of partnership that’s a collaboration where we’ll get special collections and sneakers. SKIMS (reportedly valued around $4 billion) is becoming Nike’s newest arm.
Think of SKIMS as if you were thinking of a Jordan brand or Converse under Nike’s umbrella. It’s a separate brand.
The brand will specialize in women's products, including sneakers and apparel.
As the company’s founder, Kardashian will get a hefty royalty from this on products sold like Michael Jordan does with Jordan Brand.
The timeline: NikeSKIMS’ first collection will debut at select Nike locations in the spring and will launch globally in 2026.
The reaction: Over the last week, I’ve had the luxury of reading and watching everyone react to this partnership. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, and rightfully so, I think.
This partnership has the opportunity to be an excellent one.
One of Nike’s most significant pain points is its struggle to get women’s sizing across the board. It’s been beaten by brands like Lululemon, Vuori, Gymshark and more. SKIMS should theoretically give Nike a leg up against its competition.
On the SKIMS side, the brand gains access to Nike’s massive consumer base and gets to tout the Nike name as it expands to a global audience.
There’s also already a ton of room for overlap, considering that SKIMS already has partnerships with the NBA, WNBA and even USA Basketball.
The merger seems like a layup. The opportunities here are endless. It all just makes a ton of sense.
With that said: Not to rain on anyone’s parade here, but I do feel like there’s been maybe a bit too much positive sentiment around this deal.
I’ve seen people saying this partnership will be as big of a deal for Nike as Yeezy was for Adidas. And while there’s certainly a chance that happens, I think we’re putting the cart before the horse a bit here.
Do we know enough about Nike’s new leadership to be this confident?
Here’s why: The partnership makes plenty of sense, but if the last five years have taught us anything, the day of giving Nike the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making layups is over.
While this is being announced under Elliott Hill, this SKIMS partnership is a John Donahoe initiative.
The deal was inked in October 2023, with the two sides hammering out NikeSKIMS’ operations in the time since.
Kardashian’s brand initiated contact with Nike, per Jacob Gallagher of the New York Times, and things moved from there.
I can’t help but wonder if the vibes around this merger would be as rosy as they are had this been something that Donahoe had announced before his departure. I think the answer to that question is no.
My take: While I do believe that the vision put forth by Hill so far is a good one, it’s kind of still just a vision. Visions need to be executed.
That’s why I have a healthy skepticism about this partnership. While I think it’s brilliant, this is essentially a merger between two multi-billion dollar companies. We all know how that goes — it tends to get messy.
Corporate priorities can get in the way of design and creativity. That’s happened a lot for Nike over the last few years. Skims today won’t be what NikeSKIMS is in one or two years. How will it evolve under Nike? Will NikeSKIMS have to bend to the will of the overarching brand, or will Kim K and company be able to continue doing what they’re doing? I don’t know the answer to those questions.
I can admit that this is the right decision for both sides. But I’ll need to get the answers to those questions before I decide whether it’s a good one or not.
All-Star weekend recap
As I said at the top of the newsletter, All-Star weekend was a blast. This was the first one I’d ever attended and, luckily, it was much more active from a brand standpoint than the last few had been.
There were so many sneaker brands in the bay that weekend.
Nike held a special event for A’ja Wilson, unveiling her signature shoe to the press in person for the first time. The brand also released the Galaxy Foamposite and held a “Foam Party” on Saturday night. It was fun. Wale was there. You know I had to stop by.
Adidas held events with its stars and unveiled Donovan Mitchell and Damian Lillard's next signature models. Anthony Edwards kept pump-faking on the AE 2.
Converse showed off Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s upcoming signature shoe at a press event on Friday for the first time. I posted some of that in the subscriber chat. Most interesting sneaker event of the weekend IMO.
Jordan Brand held its Futures Game with high school basketball stars and released limited runs of high-heat upcoming releases, such as the Grape AJ5s, White Cement AJ4s, and more. Union LA also held an event and released pairs of the Union Jordan 1s.
Foot Locker held a weekend-long activation with games and events for fans. Throughout the weekend, many All-Stars slid through the event.
New Balance opened up a space with Kacey Lynch and Bricks & Wood to release the Fresh Foam BB v3 and a coinciding pair of New Balance 1000s. I grabbed a pair. Couldn’t resist. The shoe is entirely reflective!
That’s a long list. I couldn’t get to most of it, to be quite honest. There were other All-Star media sessions I had to attend. Between bouncing around San Francisco and Oakland, getting around was pretty tricky and Uber rides are expensive.
But still, it’s good to see brands squeezing the juice out of All-Star weekend again.
Behind the curtain: Every year I’ll either send out emails to see what’s happening at All-Star or someone from a brand will reach out to invite me to an event. For the last few years, many of the brands you see above have sat things out for a number of reasons that I don’t think we need to go over here.
Yes, but: I think there’s still value in appearing at All-Star. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Sports is the biggest stage in fashion and footwear. It’s the only space where we still have a sense of monoculture. These are tentpole events.
Taking advantage of that is smart — especially when you have some cool new things to show off.
I think many of these brands did for the first time in a while. Because of that, I think they’ll perform better moving forward for it.
A weird moment for Fear of God
This is a big week for Fear of God.
The Adidas x Fear of God Athletics II is dropping a new “putty beige” colorway on March 1.
On top of that, select Adidas basketball schools were set to show off their new FOG alternate uniforms.
Flagship programs in Indiana and Miami were included. Kansas — one of the most prestigious basketball schools in the nation — was added to the roster.
Then things got weird: Indiana’s men’s and women’s basketball teams suddenly decided not to wear its FOG uniforms. Instead, the program opted to rock its traditional uniforms, per the Indiana Daily Student.
The why: There wasn’t one given. According to the IDS, Lorenzo was not contacted by the school before the decision was made. No reason was provided for the change.
Instead, a spokesperson only gave this statement:
“Indiana men’s and women’s basketball programs will not be wearing the Fear of God uniform design in any upcoming games. IU will continue to proudly wear Adidas apparel, including our traditional basketball uniforms.”
This is so incredibly vague and strange.
Remember: Indiana and Miami were the two pilot schools for Adidas’ FOG uniforms last season. Whatever the issue with the uniforms this season for Indiana, it wasn’t a problem last year.
So what’s changed? I’m not sure. But I’m super fascinated by this and can’t wait til we get to the bottom of it.
20 years of Pigeon
Can you believe it’s been 20 years since Jeff Staple’s Pigeon SB Dunk changed sneakers forever? It’s been that long, guys. February 22, 2005.
Here’s Staple talking about the moment in an interview with GQ.
What a time, man. I’m high key very glad that we just do raffles now.
What’s droppin’, bruh?
Adidas Harden Vol. 9 “Pearlized” — Wednesday, February 26
Union LA x Jordan Brand AJ1 “Shadow x Chicago” — Thursday, February 27
Skepta x Puma “Skope Forever” — Friday, February 28
Nike Total 90 III — Saturday, March 1
Adidas Fear of God II — Saturday, March 1
Air Jordan 12 “Flu Game” — Saturday, March 1
That’s a wrap, folks. Thanks so much for reading. I appreciate you giving me a bit of your time this morning.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns feel free to voice them via email at mikedsykes@gmail.com or shoot me a message here via Substack.
Peace and love, folks. Be safe, be easy, be kind. We out.
-Sykes 💯