Inspired by the brand’s storied Ostrich print – the animal print introduced by iconic Nike designer Tinker Hatfield on the Air Safari in 1987 – Nike have introduced the ‘Electric Pack’, ready for the Paris Olympics.
Ready for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, Nike bring another bold colour combination to its performance footwear lineup with the ‘Electric Pack’. The 55-shoe collection features new colour updates for the Air Zoom Mercurial Superfly, Nike Phantom GX 2, Phantom Luna 2, and Tiempo Legend, with the brand’s famed Ostrich print combining with their ‘Total Orange’ colour.
Of course, the Mercurial, in particular, has a storied history with the Ostrich print, having featured on several ‘Safari’ editions over the years, including Cristiano Ronaldo’s signature Mercurial Superfly II CR ‘Safari’ from 2010, and the reworked Mercurial Superfly CR7 Safari 10 years later in 2020.
While our focus is purely on the football boots from the collection, the look is replicated across all footwear, from sprint spikes to distance shoes. Caroline Abero, Sr. Director, Women’s Footwear and Apparel at Nike, served as the colourway lead for the Electric Pack. For her team, the colour and print combination needed to be distinctly Nike, exuding an attitude that’s synonymous with winning: bold, fearless, irreverent.
“We wanted to take something you wouldn’t think about in the context of performance — the Safari pattern — and create an artefact that signalled this new era of sport,” says Abero. “We’re bringing sport and culture together on the playing field and creating a new look of sport for the next generation.”
The origin story of the Ostrich print is well known. On a jaunt through New York City’s SoHo neighbourhood in the ’80s, Hatfield passed a high-end furniture boutique, where he saw a couch covered in luxurious ostrich print. Its textures were beautifully natural. Bumpy, grooved, organic. Here was an object that was elevated purely by the material it was covered in. Hatfield came back to Nike and wanted to apply the print to a performance shoe, which was wild for an era when the two worlds never mixed. Take an athletics shoe and make it …non-athletic?
It was revolutionary for the time. Up until then, Nike was viewed primarily as a utilitarian performance brand. The challenge: combine lifestyle elements with a high-performance product, and then add a story through colour or textures that emanates from a specific time or place. That combination still stands out.
Shop the Nike Electric Pack at prodirectsport.com/soccer
