The crossover between sportswear, style and performance, mixed with on and off the pitch fashion has produced great innovation. Berlin sneaker store 'Overkill' recently played host to a special exhibition celebrating how the game has influenced sneakers and how sneakers have influenced football boots.
Over the Champions League final weekend, Berlin based sneaker store Overkill hosted this brilliantly delivered mash-up from Nike Sportswear. With the likes of Ronaldo (R9) stopping by, it also hosted a number of lead designers and chief innovators from the brand who talked through how some boots and sneakers came to fruition and how the brand finds inspiration from different sectors internally. In this case Nike Football taking a slice out of the books of Nike Sportswear and vice-versa.
Very much a story telling exercise and a behind the scenes look at the thought process behind one of the most creative brands going, Arnault Tanguy - Footwear Product Director at Nike Sportswear was on hand to explain, "There is always an interesting story behind our products and we use lots of different ways to bring these to life. Often it's by using hidden details in the design, one of the key examples here is the Nike Dunk Low Supreme “R9 Mercurial” - we took a coveted sneaker and added a layer of story telling. All of a sudden nostalgia takes over and people instantly remember where they were in 1998, which everyone knows was the best World Cup because France won it!"
The pace of the Swoosh shan't be slowing down anytime soon, and with the ambition to create the future being very much stamped on the proofs for many products that come out of Nike HQ, 2016 is in no doubt going to be another big hitter.
An exhibition that runs until 20th June, there's still time to check it out. Take a look at the gallery above and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
