New life for Nike Sportswear

11 Aug 2008

The Sky-rink at the Carlton Centre in Johannesburg - a place that was once popular for ice skating way back when - was revamped to host the Nike Sportswear launch on Friday, 8 August 2008. The reintroduction of the sportswear coincided with the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Nike took eight products on a high-tech journey and came up with a collection rooted in the company's history in sportswear design, including a combination of some of Nike's best DNA, dating almost four decades back, to give the designs a facelift.

The ‘Be True' campaign first appeared in 1985 when culture and sport crossed genres. The campaign was about representing your school and team. The Dunk was a popular shoe for skaters because of its stability and lower profile sole, which improved grounding performance. It's been 23 years since the Nike Dunk's first appearance on the hardwoods; however, the Dunk movement remained.

The Nike Air Force1 and the Windrunner have also gone through a re-evolution and a facelift.

“We're identifying the products that consumers themselves have made iconic. We are taking those classics and creating new expressions of style by blending our heritage product of the past with innovations of the present and future,” explains Nike Sportswear brand manager Kemi Benjamin.

“We're creating products through a sharpened innovation lens, dipping into our deep reservoir of sports, crafting classics, mixing the old and the new, following a meaningful and innovative design ethos. Innovation creates new expressions of style.”