Could Nike and adidas release joint sneakers?

What can be associated with the sneakers, which will simultaneously display three stripes and the Nike brand tick? Most likely, with the work of some skillful customizer or the costs of unofficial Chinese production – the so-called palyu.

It would seem that competing brands can not unite, and among sneaker lovers it is considered indecent even to put on socks firm, which will be hostile to the brand worn sneakers (for example, sneakers adidas and Nike socks). However, things are no longer so simple and unambiguous: perhaps the world is really waiting for such hybrid sneakers in the near future. How did it happen? Tells Dina Toroeva.

author and creator of the street culture blog First Soupe

Knows all about the fashion triangle between Kanye West, adidas and Nike.

But what’s so surprising about it? Some might think of the long-standing adidas and Reebok collaboration based on the Instapump model.

However, this is not quite a “pure” experiment: adidas at that time still owned Reebok(in 2021 adidas sold a subsidiary of the American organization Authentic Brands Group (ABG) for more than $ 2 billion – Note “Championship”).

From the same opera are the famous collaborations from the world of high fashion – the joint collection of Gucci and Balenciaga. Both fashion houses belong to the same concern Kering, which means that there is no conflict of interest and no competition in this collaboration.

But the battle of the titans for a place under the sun is much more interesting to watch, and here the most vivid example is the competition between Nike and adidas.

Another reason to talk about Nike x adidas sneakers gave 44-year-old rapper and scandal influencer Kanye West. It’s far from the first time he’s created this kind of hype around himself, but this time he literally sent his fans into a frenzy when he posted a photo of the iconic Jordan Jumpman logo on his account (and the Air Jordan name brand is designed by Nike), hinting that he’s open to a collaboration.

Kanye West also added a screenshot of a comment left by Marcus Jordan, son of basketball player Michael Jordan, saying he supports the initiative.

What preceded these new and seemingly comical ideas? It turns out that West is not just a wacky billionaire rapper, but quite the innovator and a big deal in snicker culture. And before he signed a $10 million contract with adidas in 2013, he had a serious beef with Nike.

After all, West was the first non-sports person that Nike brought into their brand to do collaborations and branded sneakers.

Air Yeezy 1

West released his Air Yeezy 1 and Air Yeezy 2 Red October sneakers with Nike in 2009 and 2014, but walked away from the collaboration pretty quickly because Nike refused to pay him the appropriate royalties because he’s… not an athlete.

Air Yeezy 2 Red October

“Nike told me, ‘We can’t pay you royalties because you’re not a professional athlete.’ I told them, ‘I’m an athlete on stage.'”

Then in 2013, Nike let West go pretty easily. They hardly guessed that five years later, the main driver of their sales (much less collaborations!) would also be a rapper – Travis Scott. However, Kanye West was not alone for long: he was “warmed up” by adidas, where no one cared what the future creator of Yeezy Boost sneakers was doing – rapping or basketball.

In 2016, West released a song called Facts, in which he bragged about the resounding success of his Yeezy line’s partnership with the adidas brand. Here, for example, is a line from the track, “Yeezy, Yeezy, Yeezy, Yeezy, I feel so successful, I said a lot of ***, but I just did the numbers.”

West also included claims about former coworkers in the track’s lyrics, “Nike, Nike treat employees like slaves.” He was definitely right about something: the Yeezy line made its creator a billionaire in 2018, and West reportedly received 5% of the collection’s sales. Since then, he has signed 10-year partnerships with mass-market retailer Gap and, most recently, fashion house Balenciaga.

However, despite his nearly 10-year disagreement with Nike, Kanye West has hinted on more than one occasion that he might be willing to put up with it. In recent years, he has worn the brand’s items several times, which has irked his followers.

In 2020, he expressed his admiration for the Nike ISPA Road Warrior model and wished he had one for himself. That same year, West went to ultimatums: he tweeted that he would only wear Jordan sneakers until adidas put him on its roster, but only a year later he proudly stepped out in a pair of Vandal Highs.

And speaking of the twice-mentioned fashion house Balenciaga, he wore Nike socks with adidas Yeezy Foam Runner sneakers at their show – Balenciaga Fall 2021 Couture – the fashion house’s first Haute couture show in half a century.

The snickerheads paid far more attention to this seemingly inconspicuous detail than they did to the fact that West came to the show in a winter down jacket at the height of the summer season.

So what about now that the rapper is once again spurring big brands into near-impossible collaborations? Let’s just say that anything is possible, and indeed in a little while you may see fashionistas wearing sneakers with two competing logos, and it’s all because of Kanye West.

“Kanye is a genius!” – it’s not always clear from this phrase whether it’s said ironically or not, and there’s a reason for that. He is a scandalous man, sometimes calling himself Jesus, supporting Donald Trump and sending strange signals on Twitter. Nevertheless, it was Kanye West who started the 21st century association of sneakers with rappers rather than athletes. And the Nike brand, which seems to have lost rapper Travis Scott as an ambassador forever due to the tragedy in Houston, can’t argue with that now.