Nike officially has taken notice of designer Ava Nirui‘s popular Instagram account, an eye candy feed known for Nirui’s playful comments on luxury and sport logos and how their applied to objects. Niirui occasionally also sells merchandise through her online store.
Nirui landed on Nike’s radar through her custom versions of Air Force 1 sneakers and reached out to her about a year ago about doing a project. It all came together with the goal of creating a New York installation for Air Max Day (March 26, 2017). With a plan in place, Nirui reached out to Alex Lee, a designer she recently collaborated with on a Barbie luxury label project.
“When I was asked to work on this project, I really wanted to involve Alex, as he has a very unique point of view and is passionate about messaging behind art and fashion,” explained Nirui in an interview with Dazed. “We spoke about what we wanted to get out of this as a whole, and we agreed that race and unity are ideas that are important to touch on. We also loved the idea of incorporating dated technology or reverse-innovation in some way, since the theme for the event is innovation.”
Together, Nirui and Lee created eight shoes, photographed to create mock advertisements inspired by the look and feel of prior Air Max’s campaigns. Among the shoes was an “Air Mail” shoe, wrapped in brown paper and a “For Your Health” sneaker, festooned with razor blades and nails.
The actual shoes are on display this week at the Nike clubhouse at 45 Grand Street in Manhattan.
Check out images of the ads below.
