Nike is fresh off of winning the biggest duel of the year.
The long-awaited collaboration with Yu-Gi-Oh! finally launched globally last week. Through social media, Nike energized its audience and delivered one of the most noteworthy collaborations of the year.
This project was a long time coming- and culminated with a perfectly timed release to help celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Air Max 95. According to Nike, this was always the plan.
When conversations began with Konami in June of 2024, the idea was clear- this collection needed to celebrate the legacy of Kazuki Takahashi, the creator of Yu-Gi-Oh!. Nike shared with SoleSavy that this was the biggest non-negotiable when it came to this collaboration. The collection, across two sneakers and matching apparel, needed to respect Takahashi’s vision.
Nike and Konami were committed to breaking all barriers of traditional brand collaborations and breaking new ground with every aspect of this partnership.
Those barriers were, in fact, broken. Now, the team behind this successful collaboration is reflecting on the successful partnership with Konami and what it meant to serve both the sneaker and gaming communities.
In an exclusive conversation with SoleSavy, Bryce Wong- Senior footwear designer at Nike- showed his cards. From those early conversations with Konami, to how this project fulfilled his inner child, Bryce was generous with his time to recap one of the biggest releases of the year.
What were those first conversations with Konami like? How did they feel about Nike approaching them for a collaboration?
A lot of times we’re trying to find the connections and I think this one was kind of a no-brainer. A lot of us [on the Nike team] were Yu-Gi-Oh fans. Every once in a while, somebody would post an image of the manga and some shots from the anime with a post that said, for example, “did you know Nike was in the [Yu-Gi-Oh!] show?”
That was always kind of like a secret- an ‘if you know, you know’, type thing. When that kind of conversation came up, we were like, “hey, this is a no-brainer.” And when we did start talking to Konami I think that feeling kind of just went across all the people in the conversation. Because [the Air Max 95] was such a big part of the storyline in the original early chapters [of the manga].
Back then photos of the shoes weren’t as prevalent. It was kind of hard to track them down. But we heard that when the shoe came out and they were writing that episode, they went out and bought a shoe and were like, “we need something like this in the manga”.There was that mutual love from us for Yu-Gi-Oh! and from them for Nike. Konami was super stoked.
As someone who has such a great resume with really unique projects, now with .SWOOSH, but previously with Nike SB, did this project present any new challenges that you hadn’t faced before?
Working on something new at Nike is never easy. This is our biggest collaboration to date, and this was like the first time (.SWOOSH) was doing that for Nike. It was a big learning curve.
The nice thing about this, that was also a challenge, was being able to work cross-functionally between brand, marketing, footwear design, product management, and to all sit in a room together and say, “how can we make this work for everybody?” We just got to really hold hands together, and create something really unified that didn’t feel lacking on any of the fronts. So, that was a really cool new thing. We were the ones that were really having to step up and make sure that we were coming correct. Nike does that really well. But with such a new team, it was a little scarier for us.
Oftentimes sneakers release as odes to certain IPs. In fact, part of the success of Nike SB can be credited to that. Is there a world where this project would have occurred if Konami wasn’t on board?
It crossed our minds, and I have some original concepts that were just color-ups. We wanted to do an Air Max 95 to celebrate the big bubble coming out this year. But, I will say once we had it on the page, we were like, “this is not it unless we can go full tilt.” Without that official co-sign, not only would the story be harder to tell, but I think it wouldn’t have reached the audiences that we needed to.
The shoe would be nothing if we didn’t have Red Eyes Black Dragon inside of it. You know what I mean? The shoe would be nothing if we couldn’t have Joey on the box.There was a world where it could happen. But, when we were sitting there looking at it, we were just like, “ if we don’t do this right, it’s just not going to hit.”
How important was it for you and the team to connect with the Yu-Gi-Oh! community? Did you all feel a sense of responsibility to deliver something great not only for sneakerheads, but to fans of such a beloved franchise?
I carried that responsibility on my back the whole time.
As a fan myself, as somebody who grew up redrawing the cards to teach myself how to draw, I felt a huge responsibility to myself, but then also to the people who are like me in this cross-section of both footwear and in the fandom of Yu-Gi-Oh!.
It was a heavy burden. And maybe it’s my own creative insecurities, but every time I looked at the shoes I thought, “Is this enough? Are we doing enough? Is this right? Does this feel right?”
Luckily, we had an amazing team, with people like Logan Moy and the rest of the marketing team sitting there watching my back and vice versa. This was our baby. We needed to rack our brains to make sure this thing came out right and over-index on being as authentic as possible so that when the time came- everybody understood that we did it for the community.
Some of these collaborations seem so surface level, and we just didn’t want to do that. We wanted to make this as hard as possible on ourselves so that at the end of the day, they came out as best as possible.
The Air Max 95 is an important sneaker. Was there also a responsibility while you were putting together this project and making changes to the DNA of the silhouette?
We’re not redoing the Air Max 95 and calling it the new Air Max 95. We are adding to the history, and we are adding dimensions to it. And I think that’s what people need right now.
If there was no reason [for this collaboration] to be, then yeah, I would have been scared. I felt the pressure from just the general weight of working on an Air Max. But I had no real fears once we landed the reason to be, the story behind it, and how it impacted the history of what the Air Max 95 is. It only added to the legacy that is Air Max 95. It didn’t detract from it.
I’d go present that shoe a million times over again to the highest of VPs at Nike. It’s almost an inarguable shoe because it’s just all there for us– from the product, to the story, to the marketing, to the partnership. It was both scary and like, “oh no, I could do this. I could do this every day.”
So, getting more into the details on the shoe, we are curious how many different shades of blue did you play around with? What was the material selection process like, and how did we get to the pair that was released?
At Nike we have color designers who go and find palettes and they name colors that Nike specifically uses- like Sport red, for example. Our team did not have a color designer at the time when this Air Max 95 was being created. So, I was pretending to be a color designer for a little bit. I got some really good guidance from my old friends at SB, as well. I spent about two days in the material color library at Nike.We have a big room with a bunch of color palette chips that are printed on like leather, synthetic leathers, textiles.
At the beginning of the project, we actually didn’t even know what the material should be yet until we saw some of the executions of how the printing was going. So, I picked chips for textiles. I picked chip color, chips for leathers, and synthetic. I picked a ton and just put them all together and sat there with different lights.
When we were getting samples created, we had to make sure the blues were corrected and we had to make sure all the different details contrasted, like the little hand drawings that I did for the etching for the midsole. Every single detail had about that same level of scrutiny.
So, you’re saying there’s a lot of promo samples laying around?
Yeah. A lot of variations. But maybe those show up, you know, in the future.
Regarding the details, like you mentioned, all of them had so much passion behind them. What would be your favorite detail on the sneaker, though?
It’s like you are asking me to pick a favorite child. But there’s one that I think is most meaningful to me, well, there’s two.
The first one is the “Air Muscle” label on the tongue. I think that was the thing that we’re like, “if we can’t get this, scrap the shoe.” That one we fought for, and it’s the icing on the cake. It’s very subtle, but it just starts to unravel the story for you. And I think that’s the beauty of that singular detail.
That being said, my absolute favorite detail on the shoe is the smiley face on the sock liner. That one’s a deeper cut. In the show they talk about how friendship kind of overcomes all, right? And I think that’s something that we wanted to talk about from this collaboration’s partnership team and [also] the Nike and Konami friendship.
But the deeper personal meaning to that is that, the team that created this, they’re all some of my closest friends. I think it was maybe the last detail we put in there. We got the sock liners without the thing and I was like, “you know what? This thing’s going to be glued in. Let’s put a secret in there.” And of course, we showed it to Konami and they thought it was amazing.
Was Konami as excited as you all were the whole time?
For sure. The excitement and the energy in the rooms when we were all like working together, presenting, having these discussions- it felt electric. It was also like a dream come true for both sides.
I remember an early conversation [with Konami where] they mentioned something along the lines of “we didn’t think Nike would want to tap into this culture and this community because it’s a bit different- it’s not the coolest like Nike.” And we were like, “what are you talking about?”
When you find niche communities that have a love and a passion for something so deep, that’s super cool. I thought that was really interesting- seeing what their perception of Nike is, and our perception of them. Everybody was so stoked because we were about to do something really brand new for each brand.
Did Konami come to you guys with anything? The promo cards come to mind, obviously. Was that an idea from Konami?
We threw the idea of the cards out very casually. They were like, “you guys want to do something special? We could do custom cards with the shoe on them.”
That was a thing that hadn’t been done. It was like infiltrating the actual TCG game and being like, “Nike’s in it now”. It’s one thing to be like,“cool, I’m going to throw it out on a card with a little brand hit logo on it.” But it’s another thing to be like, “yo, this is a playable card with the product on it.”
They were the ones that said, “yeah, we could do that. And guess what? We’ll throw in a Red Eyes Black Dragon as well.” And we’re like, “oh, what?”
So, was it Konami’s idea to create the Red Eyes Black Dragon promotional card?
Yeah. So they were like, “Hey, we’re so excited. We want to do another card with you guys.” And our team was like, “whoa, well, we’re doing two shoes, so what do we do with that last one?”
Our genius team on the marketing side was like, “you know what? Let’s just give it back to the community. Let’s just give it away”. That was kind of like one of those ideas that was kind of just a happy accident.
But once that we put it in the perspective of instead of giving this to sneaker heads waiting in line for a drop, let’s go to the Championships and actually scope out people who are in the culture playing the game. And that was the thing that was really exciting. And I don’t think a lot of people are doing that when they’re going as deep into collaboration as we have.
What is your biggest takeaway from this special collaboration with Konami and Yu-Gi-Oh!?
Follow what you believe in. Getting after a thing that everybody truly believes in is just really unifying and it builds friendships, bonds, and relationships with different collaborators and people internally. I’ve worked on amazing shoes at Nike, and I love every team I’ve been on, but this one just really felt different because every single person was firing at the same level. There was this mutual love for this project. It felt like we were this elite SWAT team coming together to create an amazing project.
How were you measuring success with this whole project personally? After all, it’s a monumental collaboration.
My dad often reminds me of a time when I was an intern at Nike, he’d say, “maybe one day you’ll be able to design your own shoes.” Every time I make a shoe, I’m like, “oh my god, I made a shoe for Nike.” That’s amazing.
On launch day I was getting all these people tagging me in their [Instagram] stories and all that stuff and I thought, “wow, people enjoy the stuff I make.” That’s success to me.
It’s one of the beautiful things about product design in general- you can affect somebody’s life. You can co-sign the kid who feels like he’s too nerdy; just like you can co-sign a kid who wants to learn how to play basketball when he gets his hands on the newest pair of a signature shoe we’re putting out.
These things empower people and I think that’s why it’s really cool to see things we create go out into the world.
One for the road, since we aren’t ready to move on from the Yu-Gi-Oh! universe. There’s several images from early on in the series of Yugi wearing a sneaker that looks a lot like Zoom Flight 96 . Could we see something like that down the line?
We love that reference, but we can’t repeat. So I think if we were to bring back any type of story, we want to find a different angle. I think there’s a lot of fun little things like that in the Yu-Gi-Oh! universe. I mean, who knows? Maybe by just bringing that up, its never going to happen.
Maybe, in a few interviews from now, we could be talking again to recap the Zoom Flight 96.
A special thanks to Nikhil Pandit, Head of Gaming Partnerships at Nike, for helping to further contextualize the collaboration in the introduction of this interview.