Tiffany & Co x Nike
When the design comes second to the moment
The internet has gone wild for the Tiffany & Co x Nike collaboration. But unfortunately for the illustrious pair, it’s not entirely positive. From streetwear’s commentariat to commenting Instagram users, the verdict seems to be that it’s all a bit underwhelming.
Some have pointed to how the products so far – an Air Force 1 with an accented swoosh in Tiffany blue, and a series of metal accessories, maybe a jacket too – feel light compared to the depths of output seen in other recent Nike partnerships, including those with streetwear label Off-White and artist Tom Sachs.
Others have highlighted the lack of a clear story behind the two brands. While both brands share a New York heritage, which is surfacing in certain designs, the specific link between Tiffany & Co and basketball is a little less obvious.
One writer for Hypebeast also reminds us of another dynamic: the existence of the Nike SB Dunk Low Diamond Supply Co. This is a limited-edition Nike shoe launched in 2005 with a Tiffany blue colour way, which become known as the ‘Tiffany’ dunk – and may have created a precedent for this collaboration in the minds of many sneaker fans.
The official collaboration in comparison feels somewhat inevitable and expected. With the output centred on Nike’s Air Force 1 , the weight seems shifted towards Nike’s design language. Would it have been more interesting to see Nike lean into Tiffany & Co’s design language instead? As streetwear guru Bobby Hundreds commented on Twitter, “I’d much rather see jewellery out of a Tiffany & Co. x Nike collab and not a shoe”.
Perhaps the mediocrity of design could have been avoided if, say, a creative mastermind – like a Tom Sachs or Virgil Abloh – had been at the heart of the partnership. It might just be that revolutionary sneaker collaborations can’t be achieved without someone involved who can really interrogate the fundamentals of the product and concept, especially with two such enormous brands working together.
But enormity is maybe what this is all about. There’s no escaping the spectacle of these two giants – two universally lauded masters of their craft – coming together in the way that they have. The collaboration’s announcement did indeed break the internet and engineered another huge cultural moment in luxury that will surely suck towards it multiple young affluent consumers with wallets full and wide open – a moment only enhanced further when Lebron James strolled into Madison Square Garden earlier this week wearing the shoes and jacket.
These moments are what this new niche of luxury thrives on. The sneaker market was worth $152.4 billion in 2022, according to Euromonitor, and has become an important category for luxury products, with auction houses such as Sotheby’s regularly hosting sneaker auctions.
The Tiffany & Co x Nike collaboration is designed precisely for this world. With the shoes, jacket, and the clean, crisp collectible objects, it all feels shaped around the buy-own-resell-trade habits of this new luxury customer. In turn, Tiffany & Co – which I would guess is the collaborator that benefits the most from the project – gains access to a young, male-skewing lifestyle audience, a market I’d imagine the brand had previously struggled to capture.
In the end, the tagline sums it up: ‘A Legendary Pair’. In other words, it’s maybe less about the designs the pair have created, and more about the moment they’ve created by working together in the first place.