Too Much of a Good Thing: Are Collabs Dead?

Nike is not having the best month. The biggest sneaker brand in the world has seen its stock drop 77% since its pandemic high point in 2021, and to add insult to injury, The Swoosh is getting the boot from the S&P 100, snatching its blue-chip status like Nunu’s chain. In the wake of the S&P 100 announcement, a chorus of voices on social media, led by former Nike designer Kelsey Amy, tried to diagnose the company’s woes.

At the crux of Amy’s argument was a breakdown of Nike’s decision to worship at the altar of the bottom line, pushing for direct-to-consumer sales instead of retailer relationships, plus handcuffing and eventually dismissing many of the designers and product managers responsible for pushing creativity and culture. There are plenty of similar stories from other brands in the sneaker industry (sorry, Converse Skate Team), not to mention the same general push across most of our data-obsessed, convenience-focused, everything-optimized business world.

As sneaker brands continue to push out in-house creatives, the industry is taking notes from the rest of the bottom-line crunchers, opting for freelance design contributors instead, with a glut of collaborations adding an “x” in between product names everywhere. In practice, that has meant a complete shift and bastardization of the collaborative process that helped spawn sneaker culture in the first place.

A Collaborative Effort

At the dawn of modern sneaker culture, an evolution pushed a small sector of the industry from a laser focus on sports and the products athletes could push to an embrace of sneaker culture itself, spurred mostly by a new wave of boutique sneaker shops and insiders having fun, chasing creative fulfillment, and turning colorways into inside jokes with their friends. When skate shops, boutiques, streetwear brands, and graffiti artists had the chance to collaborate with Nike SB, adidas, New Balance, or the like, it felt like a secret made for sneakerheads.

Now, with so much of the industry’s creative energy outsourced to off-site partnerships, the collab moniker has all but lost its meaning, with genuine hits from designers, brands, and shops mixed in with licensed slop from Hollywood franchises and household products sold at Walmart and Target. What was once a one-off product from the heart of sneaker culture, the word collab has now come to represent corporate cash grabs and the offloading of design duties onto ongoing partnerships-turned-de facto sublabels.

The Cream of the Crop

Before we get too far into the frustrating parts, it feels important to highlight the sneaker collaborations that still have us excited lately, as proof that not everything has gone to shit. Because genuinely, there is still plenty to be stoked on in sneaker culture. Going back to last year, the LAAMS x Nike Air Force 1 restored a feeling that was severely missing. New Balance’s Numeric skate label has been crushing it with skate shop collabs like the new Civil Quahog colorway of the 480; Andrew Skate Shop’s Stone Crab Salomon XT-6 colorway was another incredible take on local seafood delicacies; Beyond Shop’s skate architecture history lesson with Nike SB got us hyped, and just this week, Aminé’s new Outdoor School New Balance 992 Made in USA was a perfect reminder of how much fun it is to see a personal story brought to life on a sneaker.

No More Pokemon, Shoes, Please, I’m Begging You

More often than not, though, new sneaker collaborations feel like marketing gimmicks and cheap theme park merch instead of carefully curated keepsakes. And beyond the insane amount of interchangeable anime and Disney partnerships in the sneaker game, a relatively recent strategy to partner with celebrities, fashion labels, and shops for ongoing seasonal drops has been a double-edged sword of its own.

What does Travis Scott know about tennis? Or soccer? Or golf? And why does Bad Bunny have Formula 1 racing shoes? Do we need Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS-style take on an Air Rift? When is enough enough?

While Amy lamented that in-house designers often receive pushback on material and pricing choices from higher-ups, fashion houses like Wales Bonner don’t have the same restrictions, bumping prices and material up to match their luxury clothes. But after helping adidas bring back Samba hype a few years back, the brand is putting out new seasonal sneaker drops with The Three Stripes that feel more standard than special, with plenty of collab pairs ending up on sale racks at department stores and boutiques. On the flip side, skate shops and sneaker boutiques often bump up against collab meetings with brands that are already set in stone, with silhouettes, color combos, and logo placements already picked or offers for “shop exclusive” drops instead of true co-branded collabs.

Bring Back Design Over Branding

Of course, having collabs hit sale sections instead of selling out on day one is great for people who want to stand out from the pack or support their favorite brand without breaking the bank, but they typically corresponds with silhouettes and colorways that no one actually wants. Look at the sale section of any sneaker boutique in the country, and it's clear that collabs don’t have the juice they used to. At The Whitaker Group, James Whitner’s retail conglomerate has been dropping new adidas collabs all year long, and currently, more than 15 collab pairs are available for purchase right now on the APB webshop. When it comes to collabs, “enough” isn’t in the dictionary at most sneaker brands.

Whether we’re talking about Crocs-style licensed collabs - please, for the love of god, no more Pokémon sneakers, I’m begging you - or packs of shop or fashion partnerships, it’s time that sneaker brands stopped relying on other entities to handle the marketing load and returned to a place where collaborations come with fewer ongoing partnerships and more actual collaboration.

Zach Harris

Zach Harris is a writer based in Philadelphia. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Vice, Complex, High Times, and more. He is obsessed with skateboarding and bowling. He is still looking for his first 300. For tips, reviews, and anything in size 10.5 - zach.h@soleretriever.com