I’ve written before how I’m a huge fan of Nike’s subtle “tributes” to things they don’t actually hold the license for, the latest example being a line of Prestos based on Star Wars characters like Boba Fett. These upcoming Hello Kitty sneakers, though, are the real deal.
Princess Peach’s Leading Role And More New Releases
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These have actually been rumoured for a while now, and were first thought to be a long-overdue public release of the 2004 collaboration pictured below, which were supposed to see a wider drop but ended up landing in the hands of just a few dozen lucky friends and family.
For those not into sneaker history, these shoes are kinda infamous! The peachy/pink colourway above was designed by Fragment’s Hiroshi Fujiwara, while the black one was worked on by Steven Smith, the “Godfather” of modern sneaker design, whose credits range from the Reebok InstaPump Fury to the Nike Zoom Air Spectrum to Adidas’ Yeezy line. There were a further two colourways planned that never made it into production, as Smith recalls in this 2018 feature on Highsnobiety (disclaimer: I have written for this site):
Those rumours proved to be a little off, though, because the first images of an officially-licensed 2022 collab have turned up this week, and they show a new design, featuring a blue colourway and, cutest of all, a custom heelcup that feature’s Hello Kitty’s face and trademark bow.
Alongside the shoes, there is also going to be a line of clothing, featuring shirts like this:
The whole line is scheduled to drop on May 2.
UPDATE May 3: The shoes, and accompanying line of clothes, are actually out on May 27, not May 2 as originally reported. In the meantime, Nike has released some official images of both the shoe (and its smaller sizes) and clothing, that features t-shirts, hoodies and matching track pants.
