The Top Nike Releases of 2021

Yoon Ahn’s AMBUSH label ended 2020 with a bang by releasing a radical modified Dunk High with oversized Swooshes and enlarged proportions. She again kicked off 2021 in a big way with a ‘Deep Royal’ sequel that foreshadowed the omnipresence of the colour blue in the sneakersphere.

It wasn’t even two weeks into the new year when Nike decided to drop one of the best Dunk Low colourways in recent memory. The Sail/Coast combo had plenty of UNC vibes, and the baby blue tone was very accessible to women sneakerheads, which also happened to be an exclusive for the fairer gender.

Stussy held onto a few pairs of their 2020 Air Force 1 colab and enlisted LA-based natural textile experts Lookout & Wonderland to hand-dye the shoes. Five tonal colours were chosen to represent major cities from Stussy’s ‘World Tour’ collective. Super rare, but examples exist on the secondary market.

The Swoosh made a huge leap forward in accessible sneakers with the GO FlyEase, touted as the world’s first handsfree sneaker. This is what the future of footwear might look like. While retail availability of the GO FlyEase remains a challenge, pairs can be found on the secondary market.

Nike have been on an extended redemption arc with their ongoing mission to remake their retros better. After showing promise with an improved Air Max 90 last year, 2021 saw the Air Max BW come correct in OG ‘Persian Violet', which bore period-correct details and packaging.

After holding down Brooklyn via his Kith boutique, Ronnie Fieg set his sights on building a global empire and set up locations in Tokyo, Paris and Hawaii. These grand openings have also been marked by exclusive Air Force 1 releases, with the Hawaii edition the latest to hunt down.

When leaks of the divisive Jean Paul Gaultier x sacai x Nike Vaporwaffle first emerged, they seemed too wild to be true. Alas, this crazy colab that added baseball glove stitching to a mid-cut hybrid turned out to be legit. And there won’t be anything else like them for a long time.

Fragment Design founder Hiroshi Fujiwara had been slyly rocking his three-way colab with sacai and the LDWaffle for months before Nike officially announced it. With tonal shades of grey and navy, plus the signature lightning bolts, the shoes were as easy to wear as they were to gain hype.

Dutch imprint Patta triumphantly got feet itchy for the Air Max 1 again after teasing their new collaboration in The Wave short film. While the resulting collection has amassed four killer colour ways (so far), the inaugural ‘Monarch’ drop has been one of the most popular across the globe.

CDG have a proven track record of bringing out obscure Nike models and recontextualising them for the nouveau-fushun crowd. One such example is the Air Foamposite One, a basketball classic from the 1990s that found a new audience this year with the Japanese brand’s trypophobia-inducing colab.