Nego finally releases his first collaboration with Nike, and I have to wonder, does it actually matter in 2024?

We're getting into that.

This time on Fire footwear.

Welcome back to Fire Footwear, everybody.

As always, this is your host, Matt freights, and I hope that this finds you well.

I want to thank you for staying the course with us as we get through this content journey.

Last week, I obviously didn't come out with content.

I just ran out of time.

We were going down to South Carolina for a wedding, had to pack, do a bunch of different things, and it would have been selfish of me to actually prioritize content making over the stuff that we had to do for family.

And speaking of family, before we get into today's episode, I do want to mention that on the personal front, there are some things happening with some of my extended family, mostly my aging parents, and I don't know what that's going to look like right now.

I'm going to continue to try to make content ahead of time so that you all can have content to listen to.

It's important to me that I stay consistent.

It's important to me that I also am transparent.

And I just want to let you know that out front in case maybe a week goes by, two weeks go by, and I would try to stay in touch any way that I can.

But I asked at the top about Nego, and Nego released his collaboration, his first collaboration with Nike recently.

I think it was about a week or two ago.

You can go on, go or stockx and find that shoe now for resale, and it is what it is at this point.

And I asked at the top if it actually mattered in 2024.

And that's not a way to disparage Nego at all.

As a matter of fact, it's just kind of where we are in the culture.

I feel like the culture is in this place where we're looking too far back, not too forward.

But I honestly think that the way that the demographics of sneaker culture work, I think that the subgenre of people that actually care about the past, the subgenre of people who have a deep connection to things of the past, is fewer and far between as we go through this journey.

And so when Niko comes into the picture in 2024, collaborating with a brand that he's never collaborated with officially, it does beg the question about whether it's influential today.

But I want to go back and kind of talk about Nego a little bit because there may be some people that listen to this podcast who are not 100% familiar with who he is.

But I'm going to go through a history, a very light history of some of the accomplishments that he has had and also get down into this new release, and we're going to get into that a little bit later.

So stay with me on this.

1993.

It was a long time ago.

It was 31 years ago.

And that is when Nego officially made his first stamp in street wear and sneakers.

That was when he created a bathing ape.

Since that time, Nego has created a niche for himself and a place for himself within streetwear culture and sneaker culture that really is almost unmatched to anybody else in the culture.

I think if you were to make, let's say, a Mount Rushmore of sneaker collaborators or streetwear collaborators or what have you, I think a lot of people are gonna have nego in that top four, if not right outside in the old honorable mentions category.

And that's because over the 31 years, he has done quite a bit.

A bathing ape has established itself as one of the most, if not the most popular streetwear brands of all time.

They are known for being loud, a lot of camo print street wear items, but I think what they're mostly known for is their babe step and that shoe.

Both the high top, low top, and I believe even the mid top pay homage to the Air Force one.

And they do so in a way that is so familiar that it's hard not to look at them and do a double take if you've never seen a baby before.

The biggest difference is, I think, minor changes in the cuts of the shoe, but also that star logo instead of the Nike swoosh that we now know as iconic and babe.

Over the years, especially into the early two thousands, saw their popularity gain and gain and gain until they got really, really popular when people like Pharrell and Kanye started really endorsing them, were seen wearing them, and in some cases, even collaborated with them.

And this is when the big star started to align for BApe, and they started to really, really creep up.

And at the foundation of all of this was Nego.

Obviously, it was his vision, but he wasn't somebody, I think, that people necessarily knew a lot about.

I think there was a little bit of secrecy to him as a creator, but all the way through this, he was making his mark, making his stamp.

And as BApe started to ascend, all the way up until 2013, you saw collaborations that became a staple, really, brands like Adidas, the college Dropout Babes, the Adidas superstar, New Balance 2002 r, the Asics, gel light, three, even vans with a skate high.

All of these have happened over the years, and they really cemented themselves as where they are today.

One of the best.

In 2013, though, Nego, as a lot of businessmen do, decided that it was time for a change, and he got out of Bape.

He sold it to the IT group, stepped away from really being the face of the brand, the main creator, main influencer of the brand, and went on not too long afterward to make and create human made.

Human made is probably a brand that many people know about.

What I focus on with that is that there were differences between the two.

Cause you might think to yourself, well, wait a minute, he's going from bape to human made of.

Both are streetwear brands.

What's the difference?

The difference is, I believe that for the most part, Bape was really focused on the present.

They were focused on things that were big now, putting their own stamp, their own interpretation on things that were happening now.

Whereas if you go back and look at human made, it is trying to hearken back to a different era.

It's more of a vintage look.

They're going for a more rugged look, more workman like look.

And that's completely different from what Bape was trying to accomplish.

For Nego.

This was kind of carving out a different space for himself, padding his resume, doing something different, having his name, his face, his influence, and his ideas on something that would touch a new subgenre within streetwear.

And obviously, it was playing up to current things that were hype at the time, in a way, but it was doing so by paying homage to the past, which is something that I believe was a different direction for him at the time.

And so you go through all that stuff, you have a new direction and everything is great.

Nico continues to do what he does.

Everything's awesome.

And then all of a sudden, Nike decides that they're going to sue bape over the bape stip.

Really, the design that they feel is a copyright infringement of the Air Force one.

We already talked about that earlier, that the Air Force one is being paid homage to through the BAPE stuff.

The funny part is this happened, I believe, in 2023, and this was around the time that Nike was suing Stockx.

They've been suing all different parties over counterfeits, over copyrights, so many things.

And you fast forward to 2024, a little bit earlier this year, I think it was March, April timeframe.

And those two parties settled.

Bape and Nike actually settled their lawsuit.

And then the intriguing part happened.

Nike announced that Nego was finally going to be joining the brand and collaborating with them in an official capacity.

When I heard that and saw the news of the lawsuit settlement, and this is probably something that is out there in the space or maybe has been explained by him, I don't know.

But at the time I thought to myself, I wonder if his collaboration with Nike had something to do with the settlement.

It was almost like, hey, look, we're going to go easy on you in this settlement.

You've clearly infringed on our copyright, our design, and instead of making you pay all of this back, why don't you come work for us, design some things, make some money and we'll call it even.

I have no idea if that's what actually happened.

That is pure speculation on my part.

Somebody out there may know more than I do.

Hell, even Nego might be listening to this and say, no, that's exactly wrong.

But that's what I thought.

And I wondered, and I think other people wondered it too.

And I think it was a natural question to ask, a natural progression of all the information, all the context clues that we were getting over this time period.

And so everybody is kind of excited or at least intrigued by the idea of Nego is actually going to be working with Nike.

What is that actually going to look like?

It's pretty common in today's sneaker world to have a lot of things spoiled.

Over the last few months we have obviously seen pictures, possible mock ups of what this initial collaboration is going to look like.

Obviously there's going to be street wear, there's going to be clothes and those have his branding on it instead of Nike.

A lot of people like that.

Not for me, but I can understand why people like that, people who have reverence to him.

And the other part of it was what kind of sneakers is he going to come out with?

And what they decided on was an Air Force three collaboration.

I believe it's two colorways, Air Force three.

I just want that to settle in.

If you're listening to this right now, and you've been in the game not very long, how many people actually know that there was an air force three?

The Air Force one is talked about almost as royalty, and rightfully so.

It has been around for a very long time.

It has been a staple.

It's kind of something that you can always rely on.

The Air Force one is all reliable.

You know that if you have it, you can always wear it, you can always pair it with something.

And even when they do colors, even when they do collaborations, they maybe don't hit the hype train, but they're always pretty solid and you can really get away if you have the certain body type and you actually like the shoe wearing Air Force ones and pretty much looking good all the time.

But the Air Force three is not that.

The Air Force two came out, and I'm glad that they actually went down the road of trying something different.

Didn't really hit.

They went for an air force three, tried something new.

The thing about the shoes at that time was everything was bulky.

And fast forward to 2024 doesn't really fit in with today's aesthetic.

I think there was a time period where you had the easy wave runner, a lot of the Balenciagas that chunky was big.

We're past that now.

And so Niko comes out with this very colorful rendition of the shoe.

They took some risks, which I definitely appreciate, but overall, I had to wonder, does it really matter?

Because the air Force three is not a silhouette that matters.

And while I always appreciate when they deep dive into the archive for something like this, it still has to have meaning.

It still has to be able to bring new feelings to the sneaker culture.

That's something that Greg said on sneak this a couple of weeks ago about bringing new feelings.

And does this shoe, even if it's designed by Nego, even if his name is on it, does it bring new feelings to the culture in 2024, do people care at all about the Air Force three?

And I think the Air force three falls into this category of it means a lot to you.

If it meant a lot to you before, and I always say this when it comes to movies, if you grew up in a certain era, and let's take eighties comedies, for example.

If eighties comedies weren't something you saw early in your life, and you're now seeing them in your thirties and forties, you probably think that they're lame.

So if you never saw an Air force three, never wore one, never even had an encounter with one, and now you're seeing an Air force three, you probably are thinking that it's lame and that it's whack.

And I don't necessarily fault you for that in any way.

I would venture a guess that the Air Force three means something to Nico.

He's obviously been in the game a very long time, probably has tons of stories in his mind, and maybe that he's told elsewhere about shoes that he has connected with.

Perhaps it was one of the first shoes that he got.

Who knows?

What the story is, but I think it does have some meaning to him internally.

But it has to have meaning to sneaker culture overall.

If we are going to feel a certain way about it, we have to feel a certain way about it for the right reasons.

And I don't feel like this collaboration really accomplishes that.

While they take risks, while it looks cool, it's just not for me, and I would assume that it's not for a lot of people.

And so it begs the question of Nego's relevance in 2024.

I don't think that he personally cares about his relevance.

That's not why he's doing this.

He has already established himself, like I said, when it comes to Mount Rushmores, he's probably on a lot of people's, if not right outside of it.

And for Nego, I think that this just adds another layer to his legacy.

But it doesn't cement his legacy in any way.

It's not necessary.

And so for that reason, I do wonder if this partnership over the long haul is actually going to matter.

Is it actually going to move the needle now?

There is a still time to figure out whether that's true.

They're going to do a lot more work, I assume.

But this first iteration, I just have to wonder if maybe they missed the mark a little bit in trying to do something different, which I appreciate.

But once again, the execution is just not there in terms of storytelling.

And before we get to the end, of course, we have a release of the week.

Release of the week, where I like to highlight a shoe that catches my eye.

It's not always hype.

Sometimes it is.

It's just one that I want you to know about.

And this week I'm highlighting a shoe that's going to preview something that we are going to talk about in the next episode, October 19, which as of the release of this episode is tomorrow.

So my apologies if you're getting to this late, but the Nike what, the co dot JP dunk low.

Not because it's a dunk low and not necessarily because it's fire.

As a matter of fact, I'm not a huge fan of this shoe at all.

I think what the products in general kind of can be weird.

But the reason I say that I want to highlight this is because I think a lot of people don't understand the influence that code JP has had on the sneaker community.

And so next week, we're going to talk about that.

We are going to talk about their history.

We're going to talk about some of their most famous releases.

And hopefully we can bring a little bit more education, a little bit more hype back to code JP that maybe some of the culture has forgotten about.

So go take a look at that shoe and hopefully it spurs you to look a little bit more at code JP and learn a little bit.

In preview of what we're going to talk about next week, how do you feel about Nego's place in sneaker culture?

And how do you feel about his Air Force three collaboration?

Are you excited about the future?

Let me know.

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