Following the unveiling of the 22 Chinese Federations Uniforms, Nike launched its Nike Sportswear product line at an exhibition at the “Cable 8” Studio in the Chaoyang District. The new Nike Sportswear line is rooted in the company’s passion for sport while at the same time remixing and improving iconic designs with new technologies.
Nike Sportswear launches with eight iconic Nike products celebrating the legacy of Nike design. It includes: the Air Force 1, the Windrunner, AW 77 Hoody, the Nike Dunk, Air Max 90, Eugene Track Jacket, the Cortez and NSW Tee.
Elements of the installation include a series of high-definition video portraits by celebrated artist and designer, Robert Wilson and producer Noah Khoshbin. The pair has translated Nike’s design innovation in sport and the energy of athletes like Sofia Boutella, Shingo Iwasaki and Nigel Sylvester into a unique visual and sensory experience. As part of the launch, Nike is naming the category Nike Sportswear evoking the name first launched back in 1979.
“This Nike Sportswear launch exhibition brings the power of sports and athletes to life in an unprecedented way,” said Trevor Edwards, Vice President for Brand and Category Management. “We’re focusing our products by blending our sports heritage with new design innovation for consumers. It’s a huge opportunity for us.”
Please check out the WHOLE STORY & more VIDEOS from Robert Wilson, Photos from Todd Jordan after the jump!
Thanks to NIKE Global, NIKE HK for everything.
Nike Design: The Never-ending Quest to Make Things Better
From the moment the first Swoosh hit the track—back when sneakers were used strictly for running and airborne basketball pros had to dunk without the benefit of arch support—Nike set out to create products that met and exceeded the demands of every athlete. The greatest of these players, whether on the track, the field, the court, or the course, have always distinguished themselves from their competitors by a certain creative genius—a willingness to try anything to take them to the next level. Think Prefontaine, McEnroe, Jordan, Tiger: physically equal to their peers, but able to use their imaginations to take them beyond the boundaries of their sports.
To design products for these athletes, Nike works intimately with them and the inspiration comes from many places. To design Nike Shox technology, Nike engineers looked to the automobile industry and studied suspension systems in cars. Designers work with Junya Watanabe for his style perspective and with people such as Hiroshi or Futura for their cultural insights. The end goal of each design is to create the best product and to bring innovation and inspiration to every athlete in the world, whether on the field or off.
Nike Sportswear: Rooted in sport and Remixed with new technologies
With almost four decades of sport history at its foundation, Nike Sportswear seeks to channel the genuine rebel spirit of Nike’s roots by crafting product that challenges the expected, asking designers to push athletic innovation to its extreme, remixing iconic designs with new technologies and making the best product for today’s needs.
Nike Sportswear Creative Director Richard Clarke describes this interplay as an endless remix that never loses sight of Nike’s mission to innovate: “We do go back in time to revisit some of Nike’s best products,” Clarke says, “But we always keep one foot firmly at the forefront of technology and innovation to maintain performance for our athletes.”
The Air Max 90 Current, Nike’s latest Nike Sportswear innovation, is the ultimate expression of the line’s design philosophy. “Starting with the original Air Max 90, we are now able to do what we couldn’t in 1990, making this legendary shoe even lighter, more comfortable, and more stable,” says Nike Sportswear Design Director Jesse Leyva. “Building on the same Nike Air platform Tinker Hatfield created for the AM90, we designed the upper with the latest Flywire technology for lightweight stability and added a Nike Free outsole for optimized flexibility and traction. Every element has a purpose and makes the shoe better.”
Two of Nike’s most revered performance basketball shoes are also reinterpreted with new innovations for improved look and feel. “To create the Air Force 1 Supreme, we updated the Air Force 1 by adding injected TPU to the upper,” Levya says. “Not only does the technology add another level of support, but it’s also an entirely new technique that adds an unforgettable graphic look to the product. In this case, the 3D network of lines is inspired by the Bird’s Nest stadium in China.
The Nike Dunk shoe is legendary because of its ability to be customized and we worked with laser technology to push the aesthetic to a new level.”
Flywire is a minimalist running shoe material supported by high-tensile threads. It is one of Nike’s newest and most exciting innovations. Apparel designer Jarrett Reynolds incorporated the high-tech fabric into one of Nike’s most famous pieces, the Nike Windrunner. “Nike’s Windrunner jacket is to sportswear what the Air Force 1 is to footwear,” he explains. “Our goal was to make the lightest Windrunner ever and Flywire is ground zero innovation for weight reduction. Not only that, but it looks cool.” The Flywire Windrunner jacket’s weight has been shaved down to a mere 116 grams—less than half the weight of then next lightest Windrunner. The new version also includes a single-layer rib on the sleeves and waist, a streamlined zipper, the Flywire technique integrated into the chest and arms, and a chevron that is digitally printed on super-sheer micro ripstop material. This is a jacket that is not only physically light, but visibly light—an almost transparent garment.
Later this summer, a higher-visibility Nike Sportswear Windrunner will debut as part of the US medal stand outfit this summer in Beijing. “Making apparel for the US medal stand was a rare opportunity to create something special for athletes that the whole world will see,” Reynolds says. “So in the spirit of Nike Sportswear, we updated a ‘classic’ with new technology.” With its signature 26-degree chevron, classic front zip and laid-back hood, there’s no mistaking the silhouette of one of Nike’s most collected heritage pieces. This edition, however, has some essential enhancements: sheer-yet-technical nylon material makes it breathable and waterproof, while bonded zippers and both traditional and No Sew seam technology streamline the fit and increase comfort.
Though the medal stand Windrunner jackets will not be available in-line, US Team-inspired versions of the jacket will be sold through Nike Sportswear in Team USA colors: red (with a red transparent chevron), white (with a white transparent chevron) or blue (with a blue transparent chevron).
Building the Air Max 90 Current
When Leyva and Anthony Hope set out to create a new version of the Air Max 90 for Nike Sportswear, they started by looking at the 1990 footwear catalog to see what was important at that time from a performance and design perspective. The three key features being offered at the time were cushioning, stability and lightweight innovation. Those attributes were integrated seamlessly into the 1990 collection of running shoes Nike produced, in colorways and designs that were cohesive and aesthetically innovative.
“Tinker Hatfield wanted to give the Air Max 90 the most cushioning possible while also making it lightweight,” says Leyva, “so we started thinking, ‘What if?’ What if we could use today’s innovations and bring Tinker’s shoe into the future to make exactly what he was looking for?”
The first place the design team found inspiration was on the same page of the 1990 catalog as the Air Max, an incredibly lightweight shoe called Air Current.
Designed by Bruce Kilgore, mastermind behind the Air Force 1, the Current expanded on materials first seen in the Air Flow from 1989. The Flow incorporated a nylon and Lycra stretch fabric into the shoe’s forefoot that reduced the need for bulky materials while providing a comfortable dynamic fit. Years later, the Presto would further develop this concept and earn accolades as one of the most comfortable athletic shoes ever made. For the AM 90 Current, a premium stretch mesh is incorporated into the forefoot, greatly reducing weight and adding breathability to the upper.
To achieve a more comfortable ride, Anthony Hope took elements from the Nike Free, a shoe originally developed in 2005 to give runners the “free” feeling of running barefoot. Where the platform of the original Air Max 90 was built from heavy polyurethane and solid rubber, technology developed for the various versions of Free greatly reduces weight while providing improved impact absorption. A three-cage unit is incorporated into the new Air Max 90 tooling that controls the durometers of the midsole, while injected Phylon and Duralon add lightweight cushioning and traction to the flexible sectioned outsole. The resulting platform, improved at every level, works so well that it has been integrated into each version of the Fall 08 Air Max collection.
Additional performance elements, like heel lobes engineered into the collar area of the shoe that improve comfort and fit, come from directly Nike’s prestigious running shoe line, the Bowerman Series.
The overall look of the Air Max 90 Current retains the integrity of the original AM 90, radiating from the iconic signature visible Air unit, but upon closer inspection, this new creation has all the markings of a Nike Sportswear product: It’s instantly recognizable as Air Max 90, but hybridized with the Air Current dynamic fit system and Free 5.0 technology to improve the function and feeling of the shoe.
Lightweight to the Max: Air Max 90 Flywire
Taking the concept of lightweight innovation to the highest level possible, Nike Sportswear also releases the Air Max 90 Flywire in Fall 08, a cutting-edge version of the iconic Air Max that puts a premium on reduced weight in the upper. Built on the same retooled platform as the Air Max Current, the AM 90 Flywire fuses technology developed for Nike’s highest performance track shoe, the Zoom Victory Spike, into the design.
A material that is paper-thin, yet extremely supportive through high-strength thread overlays, Flywire is a revolutionary development that is on its way to becoming one of Nike’s most groundbreaking innovations. By stripping down upper materials to a bare minimum, only adding cables where needed for support, Nike footwear like the Hyperdunk basketball sneaker is becoming lighter than ever previously imagined without compromising durability, integrity or support.
For the Air Max 90 Flywire, this means that the upper has achieved one-piece construction with sock-like comfort at a weight that could not have been conceived of two decades ago. “At Nike we have a fascination with one-piece uppers,” says Jesse. “We’ve done one-piece Air Force 1s and one-piece Dunks, but we always wanted to add more stability. Flywire finally allows us to design a high-performance shoe with one piece of material against the foot. This innovation not only adds comfort by removing anything that could cause a hotspot in the shoe, but also drastically reduces weight.”
With a backing material made from sheer black mesh and Flywire cables spanning the upper in bright blue, this minimalist version of the Air Max 90 Flywire could easily have been reduced to a mere shadow of the shoe built by Tinker Hatfield in 1990, but somehow it still maintains its timeless silhouette. “We stayed focused,” says Jesse, “and held the highest respect for the iconic design lines of the original Air Max 90 we know and love.”
From The Original, over the Vintage to the Premium Fall 08 collection.
With its low-profile soles and signature support collar, the Dunk was an innovative basketball shoe for college players when it hit the courts in 1985, but it also had another distinctive characteristic that caught people’s attention: its “loud and proud” colors. Originally colored to match the uniforms of eight leading college teams, the Dunk was soon adopted by skateboarders who appreciated the audacious two-tone blocking as well as the padded ankle support. For 23 years the shoe thrived in the underground, a staple of both hip-hop and skateboarding’s alternative counter cultures, reborn in countless color schemes and blockings. In January 2008, Nike acknowledged the legacy of the Dunk with the “Be True” campaign, releasing a series of Nike Dunks footwear based on the original Dunk colors, allowing fans of the sneaker to stay true to the roots of the legendary shoes. At the heart of the release was the Nike Vintage series, where the procedure that Nike applies on its shoes, makes the shoe look as if it is 30 years old, but offers today’s comfort benefits.
The Must have Nike Dunk for Fall 08
For Fall 08 Nike looks to the Beijing games for design inspiration, building a collection anchored around the colors of the five rings while referencing the Octagon that is central to the theme of the Fall 08 Nike Sportswear collection. Some of the highlights of this collection are describe below.
The Nike Dunk Hi Premium with Laser Substraits
Originally used in industries such as car manufacturing, electronics, and furniture texturing, laser technology has been a tool in Nike’s shoe design headquarters for years. But it was in 2003 that Nike Designer Mark Smith pioneered the use of lasers for decorating leather, fine-tuning the process to a level that allowed incredibly detailed designs to be burned into Nike products. It wasn’t long before famed footwear like the Cortez, Jordan and AF1 were etched with intricate, tattoo-meets-graffiti graphics, models that are still coveted by sneaker collectors around the world. But laser-etched leather had a design limitation: no matter what the upper’s colorway was, the burned-out designs were always brown, leather’s interior color.
Called a “substrait,” Jesse Leyva’s team wondered if they could change this interior color by changing materials. The solution was found by using synthetic leather. The Nike Sportswear Dunk Premium uses black synthetic material with various colored interiors to achieve this multi-colored substrait effect. Each panel of the shoe contains a different color which, when the top layer is carefully etched away, is revealed in high contrast by the laser. This season, the motif is the octagon—a symbol chosen by Nike’s design team to represent the summer games in Beijing and to honor the power of the number eight in Chinese culture. A byproduct of using synthetics in the Nike Dunk upper is a reduction in the shoe’s overall weight, since leather is heavier by nature than its man-made alternative. Along with a black body that allows the colorful shapes to pop visually, a patent leather swoosh and highly perforated vamp are premium design accents that give the sneaker a stealthy-yet-sophisticated air.
The Canvas One Piece Nike Dunk
Continuing the mission of pushing color innovations of the Dunk for Fall 08, designers literally used the classic hi-top as a canvas upon which to experiment with digitally printed graphics. Canvas was the original material used in the uppers of basketball shoes at the inception of the sport, but the Canvas Dunk is a different beast all together. Made from one piece of material, it provides a seamless backdrop for experimentation.
The concept for the graphics on this Dunk is inspired by sports optics research done by an engineer named Chiro Fusco in the Innovation Kitchen. His studies found that the arrangement of shapes and colors on a garment like the Nike Swift speedskating suit can create the illusion of speed, a characteristic that adds psychological benefits during competition.
For this Dunk, a tightly knit pattern of tiny colored octagons—the graphic motif Nike has chosen for Beijing—is digitally printed on the canvas in a trompe l’oeil fashion, fooling the eye into seeing the iconic blocking of the original dunks. The optical effect of these “octadots” makes the shoe appear blurred or farther away by creating the illusion of it being out of focus.
At the heart of the Fall 08 in line Collection: the Supreme Max, AKA “Black Widow”
As a centerpiece of the Nike Sportswear footwear line for Fall 08, an AF1 Supreme Max has been re-imagined with a stunning look derived from unexpected reference points and inspired by the newest Nike technologies. It is the shoe that designers have dubbed “The Black Widow.”
Leyva’s description of the shoes creation epitomizes the Nike Sportswear design ethos, where innovation and aesthetic inspiration can come from anywhere: “Bruce Kilgore originally designed the AF1 to give athletes a strong shoe to play in, but from a Bowerman standpoint, we want to make it lighter and lighter,” he says.
Born in 1982, the Air Force 1 was the first basketball shoe to incorporate Air cushioning into the midsole. A sturdy workhorse that offered unprecedented comfort and ankle support in a simple package, the AF1 has been the subject of numerous remakes, but has never lost its soul along the way. The idea of keeping the iconic sneaker’s integrity in tact while pushing innovation as far forward as possible was a challenge that Nikes Sportswear designers were happy to undertake.
“While on a design inspiration trip to Beijing, our team was taken to the Bird’s Nest stadium and immediately all our cameras came out,” says Leyva. “We thought, what if we could create a structure that removes material from the upper, but maintains support and adds an innovative graphic element?”
At the same time, back in Beaverton, Nike’s Innovation Kitchen was working on a material called Flywire that would provide suspension-bridge-like foot support through a system of lightweight, high-strength threads. The Bird’s Nest and Flywire are both designs that allow for the removal of materials by engineering exterior support structures. It was from these two sources of inspiration that the Black Widow’s distinctive upper was born.
The AF1 Supreme Max integrates injected TPU on Nubuck, allowing heavy leather to be left out of the vamp and quarter of the shoe. The TPU lines, arranged like a nest or a spider’s web, have a 3-D look because the injection process allows the network of intersecting arms to be molded in thicknesses ranging from 3mm down to 2mm. This production method also allows the lines to “radius off” creating cleaner edges. As is the case with the structures that inspired the shoe, the application of the TPU goes beyond simply adding a head-turning graphic element: It is an innovative technique that has never been applied to footwear before. From a performance standpoint, the cage not only reduces weight but provides a measure of support for the foot that has the potential to be exploited in future applications.
The AF1 Supreme Max includes such premium details as a translucent midsole and visible Max Air in the heel, a feature that has origins in Air Max and that can be seen on the signature AF1 that Rasheed Wallace currently plays in. With waxed flat laces, embossed leather on the heel tab and tongue, perforated premium leather inside the shoe and a brushed deubré, the Black Widow has a plethora of luxury refinements but never gets too high brow, thanks to the sneaker’s no-nonsense silhouette and a jet black paint job.
The AW 77 Hoody and Loopwheeler
Innovation comes from everywhere and the NSW collection’s Design team looked to the future of garment-making, as well as to the past, for techniques that would give products timelessness not only in their look, but also their lifespan.
“In our never-ending quest to make things better, we began to look at details in a maniacal way,” says Nike Global Design Director Devon Burt. “When I started working on the AW 77 Hoody, I wondered how we could make it the highest quality sweatshirt in the world while remaining true to its storied sports heritage.”
“AW 77” stands for Athletics West 1977, the first subsidized track club in the United States. Backed by Nike, it was an organization that gave American athletes enough financial freedom to focus on training, as European clubs had been doing for years. The first uniforms were hand-sewn by coach Harry Johnson’s wife, Jody, who fitted athletes in her home and made several uniforms and warm-ups for each runner. Nike provided apparel and footwear for the Eugene, Oregon-based club throughout the ‘80s and it was a testing ground for the early Nike products that would become classics.
Among the standard issue sportswear provided to Athletics West members was the utilitarian heathered grey hoody. A staple training top, Athletics West hoodies were tough as nails, ideal for warming up and cooling down, with an extended zip that made for easy removal during a run. Recognizing the timelessness of this iconic piece, the apparel team chose to re-invent it for the NSW collection by putting it through the filter of Nike today.
In order to create the best fleece, Nike teamed up with Loopwheeler, a Japanese fleece manufacturer that still produces fabric on vintage machines called “loopwheels.” Each one of these giant machines—some of which are 80-years-old—is capable of producing 12 meters of fabric per day, enough for only eight sweatshirts. The knitting machines rotate slowly for a reason: by eliminating excess tension, the yarn is more relaxed, allowing the cotton to retain its natural softness. The material is then transported to another factory where it is hand sewn on “flat seam” sewing machines that join fabric panels with four closely aligned yarn stitches. The result of this meticulous fabrication is a garment with the unmatched loft and strength of 460-gram looped back fleece, with seams that are both durable and comfortable. In the words of Suzuki-san, owner of Loopwheeler, this is a process that creates “future heritage” products.
The partnership between Nike Sportswear and Loopwheeler has indeed yielded a new range of “future heritage” apparel for Nike. With hand screen-printed graphics and a label in Blaze Orange (the original Nike Sportswear Swoosh color) reading “Loopwheeler” in Japanese, NSW/Loopwheeler pieces are destined to last for decades to come.
Alongside producing the iconic AW 77 Hoody, Nike and Loopwheeler have also teamed up to create a family of fleece products for Fall 08. Inspired by an archival Athletics West running singlet, the 3-Panel Crew integrates the vintage running uniform’s three-panel design, classic Swoosh Pinwheel graphic, and original Athletics West logo across the chest. Another heavyweight sweatshirt called the Loopwheeler Crew incorporates the Athletics West name but writes it using Loopwheeler’s typeface and placement, hybridizing the two logos in the spirit of Nike Sportswear’s mix-and-mash design mission.
And be on the lookout for a Nike Loopwheeler Windrunner for Holiday 08. The hood, zipped pockets, ribbed sleeves and waist, and 26-degree chevron that characterize a true Windrunner are all there, but instead of nylon this version is made of long-lasting Loopwheeler fleece.
The Laser Runner
Inspired by the Windrunner, the NSW Laser Runner is the most technical piece in the Nike Sportswear collection, a jacket that marries futuristic high performance materials with cuts and concepts from running. Its shell incorporates a two-layer stretch fabric that is both waterproof and breathable, the most advanced realization of Hollister’s intentions with nylon 30 years ago. This new material is also incredibly lightweight. “What separates the material in this jacket from other nylon jackets is its weight,” says Jarrett. “For a piece that incorporates so many features, the Laser Runner remains dramatically light, outperforming bulky outerwear that makes similar weather-proof claims.”
Laser cut ventilation, pockets, and zip garages reduce stitches and create a streamlined silhouette that fends off wind and water. Strategically placed pill-shaped reflective film reinforcements catch the eye and are multi-functional: placed at stress points, these graphic accents not only protect the jacket from wear, but protect the wearer as well by reflecting car headlights at night.
The Creative Direction is Sports
080808 is an iconic moment in sports. “For Sportswear, our creative direction is coming from the same source as everything else Nike does: sports,” Richard Clarke, Global Creative Director for Nike Sportswear explains. In celebration of Beijing, a colorful octagon motif representing the power of the number eight is thoughtfully integrated into Nike Sportswear graphics and product detailing. The octagon design is silk-screened on t-shirts, repeated in patterns on garment linings, and is used as a thematic direction on tags and communications.
The octagon is a symbol of the collision of cultures at this summer’s largest sporting event—as well as an homage to the importance of the number eight in Chinese tradition. It is a creative direction that informs the designs of Nike Sportswear in more subtle ways as well. On pieces like the Laser Runner jacket, the laser-cut perforations at the neck and under arms are tiny octagons arranged in figure eights, and the storm flap is shaped like an octagon. Even the small flap covering the zipper head is cut at a 45-degree angle, based on one of the corners of the eight-sided shape.
A closer look at the Flywire Windrunner reveals an arrangement of four angled lines on the right and left sides of the front and back, and four lines on both sleeves. 4+4=8. Eight lines in three places represent 080808.
The Year of the Octagon
Nike has chosen the year of the games in Beijing to launch Nike Sportswear, channeling the energy of the world’s greatest sports summit. Inspired by the opening day 080808, designers have created an octagon motif celebrating the event and paying homage to the power of the number eight in Chinese culture.
Many of the NSW products feature subtle and not-so-subtle nods to the colorful shape—from tiny laser cut perforations to intricate screen prints—symbolic reminders of the year Nike Sportswear was born and of the sports at the soul of this collection.
Mark & Bob - NIKE
Hiroshi Fujiwara - Fragment Design, Honeyee
Hirofumi Kiyonaga - Soph.net, Honeyee
Michael Lau
ROBERT WILSON
Throughout his impressive four-decade career as an experimental artist and theater director, Robert Wilson has established himself as an icon in his field worldwide. Wilson’s artistic practice exceeds the boundaries of the performing and visual arts and radically expands the languages of light and space, craft, design, and movement, earning him the reputation as an artist who isn’t afraid to push boundaries. He is the recipient of the Golden Lion for a sculptural installation at the Venice Biennale, the National Design Award at the Smithsonian Institution, and the Harvard Excellence in Design Award. Extensive retrospectives have been presented at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Wilson has mounted exhibitions on all continents and in all of the major international museums. Wilson’s collaborators include some of the most influential writers and performers of our time, such as Lou Reed, Susan Sontag, Heiner Müller, David Byrne, Philip Glass, Tom Waits, Allen Ginsberg, Wole Soyinka, and Jessye Norman. His recent series of high-definition “VOOM Portraits” include collaborations with subjects as diverse as Johnny Depp, Zhang Huan, Isabella Rossellini, Gao Xingjian, Winona Ryder, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, a frog, a snow owl, and an auto-mechanic, just to name a few. Forming the basis for these new works with Nike Sportswear, Wilson and his team have created unique video content- works that inherently amplify the passion for innovation that both he and Nike share.
Todd Jordan
Born in upstate New York, Todd Jordan grew up skateboarding with his borther taking the train on weekends into the urban paradise of Manhattan where he honed his formidable technique in the streets becoming a sponsored team rider firstly with influential Zoo York and later Supreme. A visual artist at heart, Jordan pursued a degree in Photography at the prestigious School of Visual Arts in NY throughout his amateur skating career. In 2002, Jordan followed in the footsteps of then Zoo York teammate, Danny Supa, to join the NIKE SB team where he remains a sponsored pro. Riding for Shut Skateboards, Independent Truks, and HiFi Wheels, Jordan is never without a camera on his globetrotting tours, capturing beautiful atmospheric glimpses of the world around him and protraits of his friends and peers in candid reflective moments. His work has been published in American Photo, Tokion, Thrasher, The Journal, Lowdown, and Vice. A pinnacle Nike athlete himself, Jordan plays double-duty both representing the brand, as well as, offering a behind-the-scenes look into this Nike Sportswear project.
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