Earlier this week, I got the invite to check out Hong Kong’s first NIKEiD Studio. I don’t really like calling it a “studio”, seems a little too proper and an over-glorification of what is essentially picking a few different color panels on a sneaker. For the longest time I’ve always fucked with NIKEiD, but alas, I never lived anywhere in which I could get a pair done domestically. Back when it first launched, I remember the colors and models were pretty limited but that has quickly change. The pioneering movement of allowing people to customize their own shoes is a commonstay in the market these days with virtually all the big brands out there having their stake. And of course we can’t forget all the other artisan brands out there that have been doing it for a minute. NIKEiD itself has matured nicely. There’s an overwhelming opportunity at your grasp with many familiar models as well as apparel and accessories. The interesting aspect is that in the past, you couldn’t really expect big marquee products to hit NIKEiD… but these days you have top-of-the-line performance products like the Kobe V, Air Max 360 and the CTR360 Maestri all up for grabs alongside cornerstones of Nike’s lifestyle segment with Dunks, Air Force 1s, Air Max runners etc.

The Hong Kong NIKEiD studio is located in Silvercord, a relatively well-branded mall in Tsim Sha Tsui right near the harbor. Within the mall, they’re pretty well stacked with retailers like IT, D-Mop, an IT outlet and various other flagship stores to which IT holds a license. Nike has a pretty big presence in the mall occupying a few floors. I sat down to an iMac running the NIKEiD website exclusively. Overall, the experience is pretty painless, in fact you probably experience the same thing online at NIKEiD anyways. The choices as I mentioned are staggering in the form of exactly what you can and want to customize. I figured I’d focus more on lifestyle stuff since I don’t really have any need for performance activities aside from soccer (although I did put together a pair of CTR360 Maestris).

You obviously don’t have free-reign in all the colors, but you are given a pretty solid selection. I found some shoes easier to customize, but that’s totally up to you. I mean, what it comes down to is how can you link colors together as you see them on a screen. I actually wonder how they decide which colors and hues of colors to use. Seems somewhat random but I’m not sure. All in all, as much as I like the LunarTrainer, it just looked like shit no matter what I did with the colors. Some people were relatively simple, ok I take that back, overly simple and went a full-on tonal route in white or gray *cough cough Kevin haha*. But I figured, why not put together something that had a few colors but could still look good. There’s a bit of oversimplification these days that I’m getting somewhat bored of. Not that I don’t appreciate cleanliness in colors and design, but overall, there are times when it’s simply too boring for me. Don’t get me wrong, I would still wear it, but I wouldn’t be exclusive to something ultra-minimalistic.

All in all, despite the fact the offline and online experience are virtually the same, it was still a fun opportunity. Being in person, you do have a person by your side to give you a break-down of the materials as well as providing swatches. But if you’re in the comfort of your own home, you can spend however long you want. Apparently some dude in Shanghai spent a quarter of the day and sat there for 6 hours doing 4 pairs of shoes… imagine if you give him the opportunity to do a Nike Sportwear Air Force 1 Bespoke haha.

-Eugene

What to pick?!

Some special gift lacelocks.

I didn’t end up doing this. While aesthetically I liked it. Definitely not something I would wear all that often. The shit on the wing flap is Safari which was something you couldn’t really deviate from. But based on the colors, I was thinking Fred Flinstone.

My first choice was the Blazer, I actually don’t own a single pair of Blazers but the shoe itself is so representative of the times… simple, basic… oh and yeh vulcanized. Based on my outgoing line of the last paragraph, pretty contradictory on my part hahah. But the Blazer is a pretty easy shoe to fuck with, only a few choices when it comes to paneling. The “Haversack” yellow wasn’t necessarily my first choice but it was the most consistent throughout so I just stayed with it. When I mean consistent, I mean that for some parts of the shoe, you get scaled back into only 3-4 choices as opposed to the full set of colors. This is usually on things that require rubber or molding like the vulcanized foxing band. I’m a fan of monotone soles/outsoles/foxing bands so I went that route on the Blazer and wanted some color in there.

I wish the black could have been gray on these CTR360 Masetris!!! Straight reminiscent of the Nike Mercurial R9 from 1998… but alas… no dice. On the collar I had 2 FOOT embroidered… not that I am one to be two-footing people on the pitch… guess I’ll have to start haha.

So what I couldn’t do with the CTR360 Maestri with the Mercurial R9 from 1998, I did it with the Nike Free 5.0 haha. Pretty happy with how it turned out. Black outsole is a bit weird but it was that or white as my other option and the white against the gray wasn’t look right. I’m pretty stoked about this one.

I won’t lie, I was messing around with this extensively, but then realized they weren’t the Lasers… so I politely put it in the trash.

Here are some samples on the wall… can’t say I found a lot of inspiration here. But the all-gray samples are pretty neat.

They say 4-6 weeks… I say way over 6 weeks. It’s Chinese New Years this month, that’s the equivalent of Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving rolled into one for the Mainland folk.