Sole Collector Magazine 5th Anniversary Nike Air Penny II

Perhaps the greatest Sole Collector collaboration, Nike Sportswear helps celebrate our 5th Anniversary.

words & images_Nick DePaula

Originally published June 2, 2009

While it's been a blur at times from our end, we at Sole Collector recently celebrated a dual milestone of sorts this past November. Not only did the magazine hit its 5th Year Anniversary, after kicking off the Premier Issue during the fall of 2003, but the timing couldn't have been better, as we also enjoyed wrapping up our 25th Issue.

Having the signature series legend Penny Hardaway on the cover of what included an all-too-enjoyable interview to partake in was quite the honor, and we'd like to extend a special thanks to the Nike Sportswear division for creating this commemorative 5th Anniversary Sole Collector edition of the Air Penny II.

After initially toying with the thought of a Black/Grey/Purple colorway to tie into our current site's colors, I decided instead to go with a colorway of Black/Anthracite/Volt that ties back to our Forum's original colors during that timespan, and we couldn't be more happy with how these ended up - swatch logo along the heel and all.

This Air Penny II was made just for the Sole Collector team and won't be coming to retail. Here's to another five years!

Here's a glance back at the site during the journey!