Before we start I know I know, Nike is Nike and will always be the juggernaut that we will always love and has grown to be since the ’90s. But if we’re being honest, Nike hasn’t had the stand-out year that we’re used to them having and if we’re being really honest they haven’t in a couple of years. Their saving grace has been collaborations sparking the interest of the general public. Think about it, we had 6 Nike x Fragments collaborations in one year. When was the last time we saw a prominent Fragment that made a frenzy? The last one was in 2014 with the Fragment x Jordan 1. Since then it’s been far and dee between that we’ve seen with that collaboration. Virgil (RIP) and Off White seemed to be the only thing keeping the lights on over at Nike. With the latest draw being “The 50” Nike has been pumping out dunks all year but these take the cake. Between those, the 2’s, 4’s, and 5’s Virgil has been the face of Nike not even including the other Nike silhouettes he put his flair on. Then it seemed Travis Scott was paying the rent. Another collaboration that feels like they struck gold then tried to throw the backward swoosh on anything and just to see what would stick. From the Travis Scott Air Max 270s to the postponed Air Max 1’s (for obvious reasons) what used to be a special one-off collaboration now seems to be a mad cash grab with little intention put behind it. Retros aren’t hitting like they used to anymore. Maybe it’s because of the difficulty it is to win anything off of the SNKRS app nowadays. The quality has slightly increased since general consumers complained very loudly about quality control issues. Overall it seems like Nike has been its own enemy, when they get it right, they get it right and there’s nobody in the industry who can touch them, but they haven’t been that as of late. Let’s see if Nike can get back on track or if we’ll have a new contender emerging in the conversation for sneaker giant of the year.
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