Have Sneaker Collabs Lost Their Cool? Here’s What’s Really Going On.

There was a time, not long ago, when a sneaker collaboration between two brands was guaranteed to print money. Collabs have a long-standing history in the space, really taking hold of the culture in the mid-aughts thanks to the explosive Nike SB Dunk era, and that ethos has been integral to the sneaker world ever since. On some base level it makes sense — when two designers you love team up, be it Nike and Virgil Abloh or Adidas and Pharrell, there’s an inherent fascination with what fruits that partnership will bear. Still, it feels like the tide has shifted in recent years. Between stagnant designs and oversaturation, has the world of sneaker collaborations lost its lustre? 

The answer isn’t quite yes or no. It’s undeniable that it takes a little more than slapping two recognizable brand or designer names together to get sneakerheads foaming at the mouth and setting their alarms for 7AM to enter online raffles these days. How’d we get here? The short version is that we simply got too much of a good thing. Sneaker culture runs on hype, a nebulous concept largely dictated by the waxing and waning relationship between supply and demand. When Washington, DC-based boutique A Ma Manière launched their inaugural Air Jordan collaboration in 2021, it felt like a fresh, thoughtful new partnership in the space primed to run the table for the next decade. Unfortunately, while the quality of the two brands’ have output has remained strong, they spent the next five years oversaturating the market beyond belief. There are something like two dozen Manière Jordans and Nikes out there these days, with even more on the way. If there’s no scarcity, hype wanes. 

Manière is far from the first brand to fall victim to this, but they might be the most notable given where expectations were for their partnership early on. On the side of the Three Stripes, there was a glut of high-fashion collaborations over the last five years that largely ended up flopping. The Adidas x Gucci partnership was the only one to really take hold of the culture in a meaningful way, but it was soon diluted by team-ups with other designer houses like Prada and Balenciaga in close proximity. Suddenly it seemed anyone could just slap their name on a pair of Superstars. 

There’s also a generational shift in designers to take into account. In 2018, the biggest collaborative names in sneakers were Virgil Abloh, Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, and the emergent Travis Scott. Abloh passed away five years ago, Ye is persona non grata in most creative industries these days, and Pharrell’s initial work with Adidas petered out (though the ascendant work he’s doing with his label VIRGINIA, under the Stripes, is a bright spot of the collaborative space these days). Scott remains a heavy hitter, but he’s largely been recycling the same Air Jordan 1 Low for the last few years in new coluorways. While there are plenty of exciting designers in the space doing cool collaborative work with sneaker brands, none has the culture in quite the same grip the last generation did. 

So, have collabs fallen off? Maybe a little bit. But, like much of the sneaker world these days, you’ll find the real excitement at the margins. While Nike and Adidas might not be centre stage, there are a ton of exciting partnerships happening between up-and-coming fashion houses, off-kilter brands, and even big-name designers and smaller sneaker brands like Saucony, New Balance, and ASICS. Miu Miu’s work with New Balance is among the most exciting in the space today, with their luxury-grade product flying off the shelves every time a new shoe drops. Similarly, NB’s work with Auralee has felt like a true partnership and feels primed to grow only more exciting from here. Denim mavens 3sixteen have crushed a grip of collaborations with Saucony that honour their love for heritage menswear, while JJJJound’s Salomons remain some of the trendiest shoes on the market (I saw them all over the streets of New York Fashion Week this month). 

All of these partnerships have a few things in common: they feel thoughtful and intentional, they prioritize quality above all else, and, most importantly, they aren’t oversaturated yet. Most of these partners only drop a new shoe once or twice a year, making it still feel like an event when the shoes hit shelves. 

Collaborations between designers remain one of the most exciting things in sneakers. It’s not that the field has fallen off; rather, the most exciting work is coming from new places — many of which have yet to be fully discovered by the masses. Get in on the ground floor while you can. Five years from now, you can tell your friends you wore ASICS x Little Tokyo Table Tennis before it was cool. 

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