On April 12th 2013, Kobe Bryant suffered a season ending Achilles tear.
The sort of injury that, in many cases, devastates the careers of athletes. With a long recovery time, often taking up to a year, the injury is the beginning of a long road of recovery.
On April 13th 2013- the road for Kobe’s comeback broke ground.
It would take eight months before Kobe Bryant was able to step on an NBA court once again, and in those eight months, Bryant and Nike Basketball began gearing up for his comeback. Though the design process began prior to Kobe’s injury- it was this time away that allowed both Bryant and Eric Avar, lead designer, the time to put work on the canvas.
Kobe would, fittingly, go on to deliver nine insights towards what he wanted out of his comeback sneaker. They would include Bryant’s desire to be “feel the court”, “move with the quickness of a boxer”, amongst others. Avar and Nike took these insights seriously and came back with a performance work of art.
All of Kobe’s insights were not performance based, though. Bryant was very clear that he wanted the Kobe 9 to be one of his most personal sneakers yet. He insisted that the sneaker be “chaotic”, thus the Masterpiece Kobe 9’s iconic multicolored flyknit was born. Most personal of all, though, was Kobe’s desire to incorporate a design reminiscent of surgery sutures on the heel of the sneaker. Of course, this was done as a reminder of the difficult road Bryant endured when recovering from his Achilles injury. It does not get more personal than recreating difficult trauma and turning it into a memorable part of a design.
Once the design was set in place, the Masterpiece was ready to be unveiled to the world.
As early as September of 2013, Nike began teasing what would be the next sneaker in the Kobe line. The official reveal was slated for December 9th. Which, coincidentally, ended up being the day after Bryant’s return to the court. A museum was the only appropriate place to reveal the sneaker, of course. So Nike took the Kobe 9 to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and officially revealed the sneaker.
Nike quickly followed that reveal with the launch of the Kobe Prelude Pack. Dubbing it “A road to the Masterpiece”, the Prelude Pack brought back every sneaker in Kobe’s signature line. As part of this epic collection, new colorways of each sneaker were released-with each model highlighting a different moment in the Mamba’s career. December of 2013 and January of 2014 set the stage for the Kobe 9 Masterpiece to finally release.
Kobe’s insight about chaos has perhaps been the one insight that has created the most lore and adoration for the Kobe 9. When every prior Kobe release was a low top- expectations were shattered as Bryant returned with a high top. With Nike evolving in their usage of materials, the Kobe 9 became the perfect canvas for the use of Flyknit. Thus, becoming the first Nike Basketball sneaker to feature the revolutionary material. That same flyknit would chaotically be dressed in a multicolored fashion on the upper, an impressive feat to do from a design stand point.
Though the Kobe 9 has already returned, the pair that started it all, the Masterpiece, will return for the first time on February 8th. Exactly 11 years to the date of when they first launched in 2014.
The Masterpiece Kobe 9 will release via SNKRS and other Nike retailers.
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