In 2017, Virgil Abloh, founder of Off-White, partnered with Nike to release “The Ten”--a reconstruction of 10 of Nike’s most iconic and best-selling silhouettes. The first of his Nike collaborations was a product of Abloh’s interest in sneakers, hip-hop, and graffiti. Fused with his formal training and refined by the Nike team in Beaverton, the result was a drop of iconic Nike designs in Abloh’s signature style.
The man behind the shoes needs little introduction. In 2010, Virgil Abloh came to prominence as creative director of Kanye West's creative agency, Donda. He founded Off-White, his own label in 2013, and has since been named the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear collection. Through his work with Pyrex Vision and Off-White, Abloh’s name has become synonymous with the rise of streetwear over the last decade, and he remains one of the main faces of design today. He has received high praise from critics across industries and was named to Time’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2018.
For Abloh, the collaboration with Nike was the realization of a lifelong dream: he recounts designing Air Jordans as a teenager and sending them to the Nike design team. He notes that “[his] entire design background and ethos came from the ‘90s”, so the redesign on the Air Jordan was an obvious goal. His redesign was accompanied with great success: the reimagined Air Jordan 1 was named the 2017 Shoe of the Year by Footwear News, joining the ranks of former winners Kanye West and Rihanna.
“The Ten” drop was divided into 2 sets of 5 shoes each: “REVEALING”, including the Air Jordan I, Nike Air Max 90, Nike Air Presto, Nike Air VaporMax and Nike Blazer Mid, and “GHOSTING”, including Converse Chuck Taylor, Nike Zoom Fly SP, Nike Air Force 1 Low, Nike React Hyperdunk 2017 and Nike Air Max 97.
Each pair released from “The Ten” sold out immediately on all platforms--fetching high resale prices on the secondary marketplaces and retailers like StockX and Stadium Goods. Between 2017 and 2019, the collection has appreciated by 94.0%, with an annualized appreciation of 39.3%*. Featuring all 10 shoes from Abloh’s collaboration, Otis is excited to present “The Ten” collection.