Nike have released their much anticipated Off-White Rubber Dunk, announced at the Nike Forum earlier this year at Supply from $260.
Nike’s latest collaboration with the label, the Nike x Off-White Rubber Dunk merges elements of the Nike Pegasus line with the Nike Dunk to honour Nike’s legacy in technical innovation and nod to skateboarding’s history of experimentation.
“Highlighting the Air is part of the early logic of the collaboration,” says Virgil Abloh. “The shoe is about incorporating past ideas in a new era — designing with purpose and cultural relevance to come up with something new.”
An exposed Air bag in the heel roots the design. The Air unit sits in a flexible, cored-out sole, itself a testament to technical innovation — few rubber cupsole designs reveal Air. “It’s safe to say one of the greatest inventions in modern footwear is Nike’s approach to the idea of Air, and adding it as a cushioning element,” Abloh says. “Air is foundational to my understanding of what innovation can look like.”
The upper takes its shape from consideration of late ’90s and early 2000s technical runners. “We loved the extra overlays, offsets and printing that went into running shoes of this era,” notes Gerald Sullivan, Nike Design Director of Collaborations.
For its colorways, the Rubber Dunk is presented in three versions with references to different eras. The gold celebrates Atlanta ’96 directly, the white is homage to general release colour schemes of the 2000s and the black, well, says Abloh, “A black sneaker is my go-to for everyday life.”
Each colorway will release with exclusive regional availability, with the University Gold and Black colorway available in China and Asia-Pacific.
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