One of the biggest sneaker design collaborations of the last year has been
Nike’s partnership with Virgil Abloh — founder of fashion label Off-White
and new men’s artistic director of Louis Vuitton.
Known as “The Ten,” the project gave Abloh license to reconstruct 10 of
Nike’s most-recognized shoes, including the Air Jordan 1, the Air Force 1,
the Air Max 90, and more.
Now Nike has released a “textbook” online—you can download it here (pdf)
— documenting how the collaboration developed behind the scenes.
Nike calls it “an encyclopedia of images and text surrounding the project.”
It includes background stories of the original sneaker styles, written by
much-loved sneaker journalist Gary Warnett, who unexpectedly died last
year, as well as commentary from Andy Caine, Nike’s VP of footwear design,
and Abloh himself.
The book offers a peak beneath the hype at what went into creating the
shoes, including the trial and error of design, and how Abloh played off the
long-held emotional connections people feel toward their sneakers to
create his own new takes.
