Why Do All Modern Basketball Sneakers Look So Weird — And Good?
There wasn't a single basketball sneaker in history that debuted as a crossover hit. Air Force 1s, Air Jordan 1s, erm, other historic Nike shoes — kids comprehended their cool instantly but broader fashion culture took a while to warm up to them.
Now, though, those sneakers form the foundation of how most folks find their way into personal style; they're universally accepted as good-looking all-purpose shoes. But there is a cut-off date, of sorts. The vast majority of popular retro basketball sneakers come from the '80s, with only a handful of '90s and even fewer '00s shoes remaining relevant.
As such, nearly every single modern basketball shoe, until recently, has failed to transcend its purposes on the court.
But suddenly, a glut of extremely weird and shockingly cool basketball sneakers have hit the market.
For at least a few decades now, there's been this stark stylistic divide between the basketball shoes of yore and contemporary court sneakers.
1985's Air Jordan 1 has remained a "cool" shoe for all applications, for instance, while pretty much every mainline Air Jordan since the 14 is scarcely worn off-court. You can chalk it up to heritage but I'd argue that design is crucial. Those older shoes were simply less technical in shape and, thus, their appeal is uncomplicated.
It's all in the appearance. Look at the Air Jordan 1: Nothing but clean leather lines. Look at a, say, Jordan 15: Chunky, weird, architectural, and suited to the athletes of the day. But certainly too function-first to be a daily driver.
Not so much the case for several modern and forthcoming basketball shoes, though.
Smaller names in the basketball sneaker space are taking some especially big swings and achieving some satisfyingly fresh results, like EQLZ. The Shanghai-based brand recently created the 360, a sock-like shoe enshrouded in a wrap design.
Most basketball sneakers are foiled by their innate height — taller shoes better support athletes' ankles but their extra inches often make basketball shoes difficult to style day-to-day — but the segmentation of the EQLZ 360's carapace-like upper balances its proportions, in turn making it surprisingly stylish.
Li-Ning, another Chinese sportswear label, has deep pockets but not a ton of visibility in the West due to relatively limited distribution.
However, its independence allows for ample experimentation, perhaps best epitomized by the wild 3D-printed slippers Li-Ning quietly debuted under Way of Wade, the basketball label it operates with NBA all-star Dwyane Wade.
The Way of Wade Infinity 2.0, released in a limited edition, looks more like a loaf of bread than a hoop shoe and, sure, it's probably meant to be a post-game slipper than an on-court stepper. Still, it speaks to the eroding boundaries of basketball sneaker design, especially by left-of-center designers.
The bigger brands, meanwhile, are mostly minding those boundaries though there is an admirable amount of solid-looking oddities afoot.
At Reebok, for instance, some much needed innovation comes from the impressively slick Engine A first seen on Angel Reese; Fila spun its late '90s Mindblower into the appreciably chunky Mind8 (Reebok and Fila are even dressing in timely metallic hues); after surfacing in a handsome Aimé Leon Dore-exclusive colorway, New Balance's almost-there Fresh Foam BB finally hit peak potential with some solid in-line makeups.
The big mover and shaker here is adidas, actually, whose hoop-centric sub-label is behind some of the best things in the basketball shoe biz.
At the heart of it is young Anthony Edwards, the budding NBA star with many much-lauded campaigns to his name. Beyond their polished branding, the 23-year-old's latest signature shoes are objectively cool, all alien curves and texture.
It lead adidas Basketball's pack of new-school signature shoe excellence, which doesn't even include the "ordinary" in-house adidas Basketball shoes, nearly all of which are approaching the realm of weirdness once exclusively occupied by the nutty Kobe 2.
Except that the Kobe 2 was basically a one-off while adidas Basketball's new shoes are a constant in its oeuvre.
And then there's the Swoosh.
Nike is no longer the innovator it once was, as basically everyone has been keen to say over the past few months.
Jordan's latest lifestyle designs are fine and all, what with the recent low-top Air Jordan 4 RM making waves and some solid old-school updates.
But in terms of on-court crossover steeze, Nike, Jordan Brand, and Converse are comparatively lagging. Their shoes are likely still quite popular amongst actual hoopsters but unlikely they're often being worn casually.
And then there's Devin Booker.
The 28-year-old point guard only just received his first signature shoe, the Book 1, in November and it's kind of a looker (or... a Booker? Sorry).
It's not as impressively weird or as sleek as some of its peers but Nike's Book 1 is a solid refresh of the Swoosh's footwear designs, what with its streamlined shape and dearth of exaggerated technical doodad-ery.
Several leaked colorways hint at an more streamlined (and even better) shape, suggesting much potential for the fresh shoe. The Book 1 is so solid that it's even already scored a Hiroshi Fujiwara collaboration, demonstrating the model's promise by swapping in snakeskin and a sharp blue fragment design Swoosh.
It's a crazy result, to be sure, but it's also crazy good. And amidst a crowded court of surprisingly bizarre and even more surprisingly good basketball sneakers, Nike could use the dub.
