Virgil Abloh and Nike Announce New Shoe Collaboration: 'The Ten'

Cassius Life Featured Video

Virgil Abloh has made a habit of creating a list of career goals and checking them off at a pretty rapid pace.

The Rockford, Ill. native has established himself as one of the hottest designers of the moment, a DJ, and the founder of the cult streetwear brand Off-White. While he crosses project after project off the list, many wonder what exactly will come next for the 36 year old.

As news of his upcoming Off-White collaboration with Nike spread among fashion enthusiasts and sneaker blogs alike, the possibilities were considered endless. We’ve seen Abloh’s creativity through his work before with his one-off triple-Black Air Force 1 Low samples, followed by his quick-strike collab with Matt Kilgore at Nike’s Blue Ribbon Studios (Kilgore’s father, Bruce, designed the original Air Force 1 in 1982.) But Abloh saw bigger, and after much creative deliberation, “The Ten” was born: 10 famous Nike shoes, all scoped and designed by the man himself.

“What we’re talking about here is larger than sneakers, it’s larger than design culture,” Abloh said in an interview with Nike. “It’s nothing short of state-of-the-art design. These 10 shoes have broken barriers in performance and style. To me, they are on the same level as a sculpture of David or the Mona Lisa. You can debate it all you want, but they mean something. And that’s what’s important.”

“What we’re talking about here is larger than sneakers, it’s larger than design culture,” Abloh said in an interview with Nike. To me, they are on the same level as a sculpture of David or the Mona Lisa.”

Divided into two themes— “REVEALING” (versions of the shoes that are designed to be reconstructed and hand-cut), and “GHOSTING” (versions of the shoes with translucent uppers, allowing viewers to see the architecture of the shoe)— the creation of the collection took place in just under 10 months from coming up with the ideas to the shoe’s release, one of the fastest timeframes Nike has ever done. To coincide with the release of the collection, Abloh and Nike will host “Nike Off Campus” events in New York and London to showcase just how the collaboration came together. The first five shoes of “The Ten”— the Air Jordan I, Nike Blazer, Nike Air Presto, Nike Air Max 90 and Nike Air VaporMax — will be pre-released in extremely limited quantities at select NikeLab stores in New York City (Sept. 9-13), London (Sept. 18-22), Milan (Sept. 21-25) and Paris (Sept. 26-30), while the full collection will be made available in November 2017. Check out the full collection below.