Pairs of Air Force 1s sent out to owners of top sneaker stores are causing some confusion online due to their resemblance to pairs designed by Off-White's Virgil Abloh for his Nike collaboration. While the shoes, black Air Force 1s that double as invites to something Nike is calling the T32 summit in Los Angeles, could easily be mistaken as outtakes from Abloh's "The Ten" series, the designer has suggested otherwise in comments online.
After High Snobiety wrote on Twitter that "a new Virgil Abloh x Nike Air Force 1 has surfaced," he chimed in with the blunt message below about the sneakers.
He also called them "not real" in the comments below an Instagram post from one of the sneaker store owners who received the sneakers.
This Nike Air Force 1 has a zip tie attached, just like Abloh's Nike collabs, and has text printed across its upper reminiscent of that found on those very limited shoes. It even reflects Abloh's obsessive approach to quotation marks.
The subtext here could be that Nike produced these sneakers that so liberally borrow from Abloh's oeuvre without his permission, although he did not immediately respond to a request for comment clarifying his stance on the matter.
