Nike Drops Kanye Collab This April
The Nike Air Yeezy, a collaboration between sports lifestyle brand Nike and rapper Kanye West, first surfaced at his Glow in the Dark tour last year in a mad neon version. That was a one-off prototype; this April the finished Air Yeezy shoe drops here.
A limited number of pairs in the Zen Grey/LT Charcoal colourway only are destined for Sole What? at The Gardens Mid Valley on 18 April. Fusing retro and modern basketball sneaker design elements and Kanye’s unique style, the shoe, which bears his nickname, is a creative partnership with Nike Creative Director, Mark Smith and the result of one-on-one design sessions and some rigorous on-the-road performance testings.
Kanye has been effusive about the project. “Nike is such an important brand to me. Whether you are on the court, in the street, in the club, at school, Nike represents excellence, the standard in design. Growing up, we looked forward to the release of new Nikes the way we would an album by our favorite artist. So the opportunity to collaborate on a design with Mark Smith and Nike Design has been a dream come true, and a great experience.”
The man was certainly trained for the task:Â “I’ve been designing Nike’s in my sketch pad since the fourth grade, so to say I’ve been prepared for this would be an understatement. The really fun and challenging part for me was learning about Nike’s design process, learning more about fabrics and functions and colourways, and all of the details that go into designing a shoe of this quality.”
So what does the Nike Yeezy pack? How about debossed ankle collar pods, extra-thick sock liners, no-stitch construction premium grade patent leather forefoot support strap, original functional tension lace loops, Phylon tooling taken from the 1987 Nike Air Assault, wrapped in premium full grain leather uppers, remastered glow-in-the-dark Nike Air Assault outsole.
Clean seams are used throughout except for a premium suede toe wrap feature with visible stitch detail. Emblazoned across the Air Yeezy is an exclusive “Y” repeat pattern, as either a debossed or lasered detail, which takes inspiration from the Jordan brand’s iconic Elephant print material.
3Â colourways will be available in total. Malaysia gets the Zen Grey/LT Charcoal colourway. This will be followed in May by a Black/ Black version, and in June with the final Net/Net colour way.
More at www.nike.com.