It’s hard to imagine any release this year that will garner a level of hype quite like Louis Vuitton’s hotly-anticipated take on Nike’s Air Force 1.
The widespread anticipation is hardly a surprise given the iconic status of both brands—a sentiment significantly amplified by the involvement of the late, great Virgil Abloh, in what marks one of his final projects before his untimely passing in November.
Fittingly then, the first drop of the capsule comes in association with Abloh’s family, as the label partnered with Sotheby’s to auction 200 special-edition pairs of LV monogrammed AF1s, with proceeds going towards The Virgil Abloh™ Post-Modern Scholarship Fund. Bidding is open on the collection now until February 8, with prices already hitting the $30,000 mark.
Beyond that initial auction release, a total collection of 47 original sneakers will hit Louis Vuitton stores across the globe in extremely limited quantities, the company has confirmed—though no concrete date has been set at the time of writing.
But that’s enough of what we don’t know, and more of what we do know so far.
Nike Air Force 1 Louis Vuitton Colourways
Leaked images had offered a sneak peek at the collection last June, though it was LV’s Spring-Summer 22 show, Abloh’s final runway, that gave us a proper glimpse at what to expect from one of the worst kept secrets in fashion for quite some time.
An eclectic mixture of bold, brash variations of Nike’s cherished silhouette instantly stole the show as more than 20 different colourways—canary yellows, metallic blues, vibrant greens, that kind of thing—were revealed, spanning both low and mid-top styles.
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Abloh’s legacy was clearly stamped throughout the designs—monogrammed uppers, wildly luxe materials and those unmistakable quotation marks displayed in abundance—all the call-backs to a creative mind that truly changed the game.
The Parisian fashion powerhouse’s signature checkered print also features prominently throughout what we know of the drop so far, and more subtle USPs, like the off-set dual-brand tongue label, also offer a fresh take on the seminal basketball sneaker.
An orange monogram-embossed calf leather sneaker trunk delivers a typically eccentric extra piece of the capsule, complete with a 3D luggage tag.
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Hip Hop Influences
Another notable theme throughout the collection is clear inspiration from legendary Harlem creative, Dapper Dan. A maverick of the industry in his own right, Dapper Dan is largely credited with bringing luxury fashion into the world of Hip Hop throughout the 80s and 90s. He regularly took fabrics from high-end brands, merging them with Hip Hop wardrobe staples, like the AF1, eventually leading to his own fashion line with Gucci decades later.
Louis Vuitton acknowledged the Hip Hop ties themselves in a short film titled Amen Break, which was used to promote the collection. More specifically, the cover art for Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock’s “It Takes Two”, which sees E-Z Rock donning custom AF1s altered to feature the LV monogram, served as a major creative driver for Abloh.
“The cover embodied the Hip Hop community’s early practice of hacking together high fashion and sportswear, sidelining diverging brands with equal reverence. A cultural symbol in its own right, today the Nike Air Force 1 serves as an objet d’art emblematic of self-generated subcultural provenance,” Vuitton said.
Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock’s It Takes Two
In their Spring-Summer 22 programme notes, the brand touched on the redefinition of ownership and the blurred lines driven by such examples of creativity.
“Metaphorically informed by the Amen Break, a little-known 1969 drum solo that became a founding factor in Hip Hop and Jungle music and has been sampled thousands of times since, the Men’s Spring-Summer 2022 Collection explores the myth of ownership in contemporary creativity. The Amen Break exemplifies the arts’ instinct to sample and resample, which when applied to fashion, sees the staples of suits, tracksuits, shirts and t-shirts re-interpreted on a never-ending loop.”
When will the Air Force 1 Louis Vuitton drop?
This is where things have proved a little more difficult in terms of concrete dates. It was rumoured the launch would drop late in 2021, though that may understandably have been pushed back in the wake of Abloh’s passing.
The latest word on the street is that we can expect the collaboration to arrive in February, though again, we’re still awaiting official confirmation of that, along with details on how to purchase. February would make a considerable amount of sense given that LV would likely want the trainers to debut alongside the rest of the Spring-Summer 22 collection.
One thing’s for sure though, whenever the capsule does drop, it won’t be around for long.
