SWOOSH APPEAL
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nfluential. Iconic. GOAT. These are a few words used to describe sneakers made by Nike. The adjectives aren’t surprising. After all, Nikes have long been the sneaker of choice among the world’s most influential people. Tennis icon Serena Williams famously rocked neon yellow Nike Air Force 1s when she stepped onto the Met Gala red carpet in 2019. Pop music legend Justin Bieber did, too, donning doodled-on Air Force 1s to the gala in 2021. Other fans of the brand include models Kaia Gerber and Kendall Jenner and musicians Billie Eilish and A$AP Rocky. It’s an impressive list, especially considering Nike sneakers are about as mainstream as a brand can get. In fact, Nike is considered the world’s largest supplier and manufacturer of athletic shoes, according to Statistica. Based in Beaverton, Oregon, Nike operates more than 1,000 retail stores worldwide along with a thriving ecommerce business. in 2021, its footwear business alone generated more than $28 billion in sales revenue. Which begs the question: How can a shoe owned by so many people around the world also be so cool that celebrities wear it to the Met Gala? The answer lies in the rise of streetwear culture and Nike’s embrace of its stars and adoption of its sales strategy.
36 • SMU LOOK
Nike is the most popular sneaker brand in the world. So how does this common kick stay so cool? by Victoria Cruz
The Nike brand dates back to 1964, when college track and field athlete Phil Knight and his coach, Bill Bowerman, started selling running shoes at track meets from the trunk of Knight’s car. For almost 20 years, Nike’s branding stayed close to its sports origins, centering its marketing efforts on the shoe alone. That changed in 1985 when Nike announced its partnership with then up-and-coming basketball player Michael Jordan to create a new shoe, the Nike Air Jordan. For Nike, the deal was primarily a business decision. “The Air Jordan project was the result of a concerted effort to shake things up,” Knight told the Harvard Business Review in a 1992 interview. “With sales stagnating, we knew we had to do more than produce another great Nike running shoe.” The shoe was an instant hit: Nike generated over $100 million in Air Jordan sneaker sales in its first year alone, and sales stayed strong. The popularity of the Air Jordan corresponded to the rise in the 1990s of a new fashion category called streetwear. Influenced by hiphop music, graffiti and skateboard and surf subcultures, streetwear involves the sale and resale of casual fashion, including sneakers, to a target market largely under 25 years old, according to the 2019 Streetwear Impact Report, an
analysis of the streetwear market from Hypebeast, a streetwearindustry media brand, and Strategy&, a consulting firm in the PwC network. And what motivates consumers to buy streetwear? According to the report, the vast majority – 70% of its survey respondents – think streetwear cool.
“Not only do people go after the shoes, but when it’s a collab, the shoes carry a history — a deeper meaning.” That sense of coolness, according to the report, stems from a demand that exceeds supply. Streetwear, it states, “has single-handedly subverted the traditional fashion system by redefining its main component: exclusivity.” Josh Luber, the co-founder of leading streetwear resale platform StockX, agrees. He explained to Hypebeast in 2019 that, “as soon as supply is greater than demand,
