I have already written how I’m a big fan of Nike’s subtle “homages” to things they don’t hold the license to, the latest example being a line of Prestos based on star wars characters like Boba Fett. These next Hello Kitty the sneakers, however, are the real deal.
These have been rumored for some time now, and were first thought to be a long overdue public release of this 2004 collaboration, which was supposed to see a larger drop but ended up landing in the hands of a few dozen lucky friends and family members:
For those not into sneaker history, these shoes are a bit infamous! The peach/pink colorway above was designed by Fragment’s Hiroshi Fujiwara, while the black was worked by Steven Smith, the “godfather” of modern sneaker design whose credits range from the Reebok InstaPump Fury to the Nike Zoom Air Spectrum to Adidas Yeezy. double. There was two other planned colorways that never entered productionas Smith recalls in this 2018 report on Highsnobiety (disclaimer: I wrote for this site):
The Hello Kitty Air Presto was part of a project to celebrate the character’s 30th anniversary in 2004. Initially, according to Smith, the pack was supposed to get a limited but available release. But ultimately, only an estimated 12 pairs of each colorway made it to friends and family at Nike and Hello Kitty maker Sanrio. “I don’t know why they’ve become so limited,” Smith says. “The original plan was 500 of each style when the project was first presented to me.”
It might seem odd considering Hello Kitty’s target demographic, but Smith was the perfect candidate to design the shoe. “Marc Parker [now Nike CEO, then co-president] knew how much I loved Japan and Sanrio,” he says. “I would bring my Hello Kitty waffle maker and make everyone Hello Kitty head waffles once or twice a year just for fun. I brought my lunch every day in a Hello Kitty or Bad Badtz-Maru lunchbox. It just seemed natural to me to work on the special project for Hello Kitty’s birthday.
Those rumors turned out to be a little wrong, however, as the first images of an officially licensed collab from 2022 emerged this week. and they feature a new design, with a blue colorway and, cutest of all, a custom heel cup that features Hello Kitty’s trademark face and bow.
In addition to shoes, there will also be a clothing line to go with them, with shirts like this:
The whole line is set to drop on May 2.