Making Waves: Designers, multi-sneaker collections, and how to make ‘The 50’ unique
Fashion designer Virgil Abloh of Off White has been one of Nike’s most frequent collaborators in recent years. He has also been one of the most celebrated, and rightfully so. Notably, Abloh is no stranger to a luxury that the swoosh rarely affords to its collaborators: a multi-shoe collection. These can come in multiple forms. For example, some athletes such as Lebron James and Kobe Bryant will be given collections that span multiple years, releasing improvements on an initial edition of a signature shoe. Some collaborators, such as current Nike star-boy Travis Scott will have more freedom on the models that they collaborate on, but Nike will still release them over multiple months and years. However, there is one final type of multi-shoe collection (which is already a rarity) that sits above the rest.
This is of course a collaboration on a collection of different models, all released in a relatively short period of time. Abloh is not a stranger to this kind of collaboration either. His original ‘The Ten’ collection from 2017 can be considered a defining moment in modern trainer history and stands out as one of his best Nike projects to this day. Naturally then, when rumblings of another similar Off White multi-shoe collection for summer/autumn 2021 appeared, people were excited! Not long after, a seemingly ridiculous rumour that the collection would be 50 pairs dunks gained traction. As we now know, this crazy rumour was only eclipsed by the fact that it was true. Now KickWave dissects what the ‘Dear Summer’ collection is, how the release might look, and how Nike can make the ‘Dear Summer’ collection memorable for the right reasons.
What is ‘The 50’?
The ‘Dear Summer’ collection or the ‘The 50’ as the internet has dubbed it, is exactly what it says on the tin. 50 Nike Dunks, all releasing this summer. The catch is that 48 of these 50 kicks seem to be incredibly similar. Shoe 1/50 comes in a bright white with a yellowed outsole and a statement silver swoosh whilst pair 50/50 sports the same silver swoosh but is otherwise in all black. But disappointingly for many, pairs 2 to 49 are very similar. The base of each sneaker comes in white and each grey, with the pairs being differentiated by lace, tongue, sock-liner, zip tie, lot number and lateral swoosh underlay colours. Although much of the look remains the same, there is also variations in the materials used on each pair. Depending on the numbering of the pair the leather of the sneaker will be complimented by either suede or canvas. But regardless of how Nike markets it, 48 out of the 50 shoes look very similar. What could make ‘The 50’ interesting though, is the release.
‘Dear Summer’ Dunk 50/50. Image credit: Nike official images
What we expect the release look like?
At the time of writing not much is known about how this collection will release and so everything written here is purely speculative. However, we can be fairly certain that the shoe will release mainly through Nike SNKRS. The SNKRS app UI is fantastic, but it can struggle under the pressure of the greatly increased traffic that a hyped-up release like the ‘Dear Summer’ collection brings. To release all 50 trainers at once on the app, or even at various times throughout one day as the swoosh did with ‘The 10’ seems like a recipe for disaster. As such, we at KickWave believe the release will go down in the following way. The shoes will release on SNKRS across multiple days or weeks as raffles, to minimise the stress on SNKRS. The shoes will of course be very limited and if we had to guess we’d say the most unique pairs (1 and 50) will be by far the most difficult to get. It is conceivable that many will enter draws for all 50 pairs and successfully purchase none of them. It’s a process that almost every sneakerhead is familiar with at this point; but with 50 pairs releasing it could happen on a never-before-seen scale. Releasing ‘The 50’ in this way will be frustrating for consumers and in our opinion would be an unwise for Nike, as it would leave people even more frustrated with the already often maligned SNKRS app on release day. Despite this, we still think a scenario similar to this is the mostly likely way that this release will drop. But fear not! KickWave has another idea…
What we want the release to look like:
If Nike and Off White are going to release 50 pairs of dunks, then we’d love to see them do something a bit different with the product. In releasing such a large multi-shoe collection Abloh is taking Nike into uncharted territory. It is the pushing of boundaries that has made Abloh himself and his Nike collabs so successful. He has proved his talent on the sneakers he and his team have produced. But we think Off White could take it a step further and use the full potential of the SNKRS app to make this drop unique.
Instead of loading up all 50 shoes on the app and making people enter for every shoe, we propose something a little different. Instead, we propose a drop that is somewhat like the recent New Balance 998 Made Responsibly release. This release involved buying a shoe from the 998 line, but because each shoe was made out of leftover materials, each shoe was unique and consumers didn’t know what they were getting before it arrived. Due to the sheer number of colourways in the ‘Dear Summer’ collection, we believe that a similar effect could be achieved here. It would work as follows. The SNKRS app would display a single raffle for users to enter, offering out a mystery dunk from ‘The 50.’ This would remove the frustration that customers feel from striking out on multiple raffles. Winners of the raffle would then receive a random pair from the collection, including, in the rarest cases, pair 1 of 50 and pair 50 of 50. This too will provide an excellent experience for lucky customers, with the random nature of their purchase being akin to the excitement of opening mystery boxes, an experience that is usually reserved for rich sneaker content creators.
‘The 50’collection in design, seems somewhat uninspired. But it makes up for that fact in scale. Despite this, we’ve argued that to be a truly iconic shoe, the ‘Dear Summer’ collection needs another element. As we’ve shown, this element can be achieved through the way that this collection is released. By giving ‘The 50’ a random element the Swoosh can elevate Virgil Abloh’s latest work beyond a collection of largely similar shoes to a truly innovative sneaker experience.
Title image credit: Sneaker News