2014 Nike Air Yeezy 2 “Red October”
by Mike DeStefano
On February 9, 2014, at 1 p.m. EST, with one tweet, Nike grabbed the attention of every person worldwide who had even a passing interest in sneakers. Out of nowhere, after months of speculation and rumors, the Air Yeezy 2 “Red October” became available to the masses. It didn’t matter that Kanye West was at Adidas by then. It didn’t matter that it had been weeks since we had heard anything about the all-red high-top. And the internet—or at least the part of it frequented by sneaker lovers—broke for a few hours.
The hype started the previous April, when West hit the stage for a performance on Saturday Night Live to promote his highly anticipated album Yeezus. Most were focused on the flashing backdrops and echoing screams seen and heard during his renditions of the tracks “New Slaves” and “Black Skinhead.” But anyone with a keen eye for sneakers noticed the bright red pair on his feet. The same day, Kim Kardashian showed off a pair on Instagram, positioned next to a mockup of the upcoming album’s cover. When the polarizing project finally dropped that June, West teased us even more on the fourth track, “Hold My Liquor,” when he rapped, “Yeezys all on your sofa / These the ‘Red Octobers.’”
“[Kanye] rapping about the ‘Red Octobers’ was almost like Rick James’s red leather boots. It was that same vibe. Having ‘Red Octobers’ on, standing on somebody’s couch, you’re lit. These shoes are really worth more than your couch,” said rapper and Full Size Run cohost Trinidad James. “It was a great statement for music and fashion. The ‘Red October’ was an incredible ending to his time at Nike.”
In the following weeks, a release date of June 18 was rumored. West would also announce a special contest to be held on his website in which fifty pairs would be raffled off. By August, only twenty-four raffle winners were named. The supposed June date had come and gone. More questions. Few answers.
A few months later, there was still no retail release. Former NFL quarterback Geno Smith was spotted in a pair that turned out to be fake as he sat courtside at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Macklemore tossed a pair into the crowd during his New Year’s Eve performance in Times Square. West went on an infamous press run of his own around this time filled with plenty of memorable rants. Some of the banter even targeted then–Nike CEO Mark Parker—the seeds that would eventually lead to Kanye jumping ship from Nike in favor of Adidas. He announced the move during an interview at New York radio station Hot 97 with Angie Martinez. Of course, West would have to put the “Red Octobers” he was frequently lacing up for weeks back in the box. Out of sight, out of mind for the Air Yeezy 2, right? Not exactly.
The hype wasn’t all that surprising. This is Kanye West we are talking about. The man’s style had the attention of everyone at the time. If he wore a pair of Nike Flyknit Trainers, that shoe skyrocketed in value. A random colorway of the Air Max 90 celebrating Independence Day that was destined for outlets flew off retail shelves and became a hot commodity on the aftermarket once West was seen lacing it up. Hype was a driving force behind many limited releases, and with sneaker culture penetrating further into the mainstream, one of the biggest names in pop culture was the perfect person to move the needle.
This also wasn’t the first time the public had lost its mind over the Air Yeezy 2. The “Solar Red” and “Pure Platinum” colorways were released back in 2012 for $245 each. The “Solar Red” pair was exclusive to East Coast accounts, while the “Pure Platinum” was reserved for the West Coast. Chicago, West’s hometown, was one of the few cities in the United States that actually received both colorways. The launch was not exclusively online, like that of their brightly colored successor. There were no secrets about the day they were coming. Brick-and-mortar boutiques across the country had to deal with massive lineups. Some hopeful fans even sat in queues for days ahead of time for the best chance to get their hands on West’s latest offering.
The black- and gray-based pairs fell more closely in line with the color palettes used on the Air Yeezy 1, released in 2009. But the design itself saw a noticeable overhaul. Nathan VanHook, a senior creative director at Nike, was the design lead. Like its predecessor, the Yeezy 2 borrowed from Nike’s archive by sitting it atop the recognizable midsole from Andre Agassi’s Air Tech Challenge 2. The rest of the standout elements didn’t owe to a particular model in Nike’s expansive catalog, but aided in further catapulting West’s latest signature sneaker into a more premium space—faux-reptile-skin side panels, a ribbed rubber heel, a midfoot strap hiding “YZY” hieroglyphics on its underside, a glow-in-the-dark outsole, and gold metal aglets, to name a few.
This monochromatic look was a pleasant departure from the original two versions from 2012. It had not been used on a Yeezy up to that point, and the all-red design, which many fans might quickly connect to West’s iconic “Runaway” outfit at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, was guaranteed to turn heads. It also made a subtle design tweak by replacing the reptile-skin paneling present on the first pairs with a spiky triangular pattern. This wasn’t the first time West had designed a red sneaker, though—the Louis Vuitton Don from 2009 holds that honor, but a luxury sneaker certainly doesn’t resonate with as large of an audience as something bearing a Nike Swoosh. All of the hype remained, but one major problem clouded the future of the “Red October.” West was now officially aligned with Nike’s biggest competitor. Which brings us back to the Nike tweet that had the sneaker world, at least those lucky enough to have noticed, watching in agony as their phones and laptops froze on a Nike.com landing page due to the wild level of traffic the notification had produced. Nike held a true “shock drop” that February afternoon in 2014. There was no warning. If you weren’t working within the company’s walls, or very closely connected to someone who was, you likely had no idea it was coming. Boutiques around the world didn’t stock pairs like they did for the prior two drops. Foot Locker, which at one point announced it would be releasing the sneaker in December 2013 with a tweet of its own, also ultimately didn’t. The element of surprise tied to the release made the hype surrounding the pair even more unfathomable than it had been for months. Within a few minutes, the dust had settled. Most had accepted that they missed their opportunity to acquire one of the most talked-about sneakers ever to release.
Others were a little more vocal. Trinidad James laced up his pair to play some pickup basketball at the local gym. While he wasn’t able to get them when they launched, stylist Renaldo Nehemiah and Atlanta-based designer Chris Newton hooked him up. LeBron James did the same thing, shooting around at a Miami Heat practice to flex his lifetime Nike deal on all of his teammates.
“Things like that, you don’t plan. You just do it,” said Trinidad. “I’m a big sports person. I like to cross mediums. So sneakers that were meant to be drip on the red carpet, I’m going to hoop in them. People know that’s what I do.”
During the February 23, 2014, stop of the Yeezus Tour, at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Long Island, New York, West even signed a lucky fan’s pair. It would later be discovered that the fan, whom the New York Times identified as Jonathan Rodriguez, would turn down a $98,000 offer from someone to purchase the shoes, which is a pretty big indicator of just how rare the signed item (and how big a West fan Rodriguez) was. The rapper also autographed a fake pair a few months later. West wasn’t with Nike anymore, and a product with his name on it was still commanding levels of attention rarely seen in sneakers.
On a broader scale, the “Red October” was responsible for a shift across the sneaker market. Many people wanted the “Red October” Yeezy 2s. Few were lucky enough to cop a pair. So what did sneaker brands do? They made a bunch of budget-friendly, widely available alternatives in an effort to satisfy the craving. Red sneakers were ubiquitous for a while after the “Red October” came and went. Red Air Huaraches. Red Air Force 1s. Nike even made a Dunk High that fully mimicked the materials of the Yeezy 2, if what was happening wasn’t obvious. And this is only a handful of the dozens of examples.
Joe Perez, the former lead art director for West’s now-defunct agency DONDA, which worked on all West- and G.O.O.D. Music-related projects at the time, recalls that the bright red used on the “Red October” was much more calculated than most thought.
“It was [Kanye’s] splash of color. He loved that red. And it wasn’t true red. It was this interesting Pantone that was off-red that he kept referring to. What was crazy about Kanye and colors was even if it was off just by the slightest number of Pantone, it registered in his brain,” said Perez. “I think that goes back to him having discussions about seeing colors with music. So he was just way more sensitive to a color spectrum than any other human I’ve ever met in my life.”
Perez also had a small hand in helping design the sizing tag on the Nike box, as well as a handful of promotional materials, including a raffle site that never saw the light of day due to the whirlwind of confusion that came with this release. The hieroglyphic-style iconography and Egyptian bird god Horus on the tongue of the Yeezy 2 were elements with which West was particularly infatuated at the time.
“We were playing with hieroglyphs, and specifically the [Horus] head, for a while. It was just iconography that really registered with him as just powerful animals, and iconography that’s been in different cultures throughout history. I think it was something that really just caught his eye, and he really responded to it,” said Perez. “It’s all going back to ancient Africa. It’s in Egypt. There’s something about that culture, the artwork, the jewelry, and the grandness of the temples that they created in the pyramids. That’s always going to be inspiring.”
The Air Yeezy 2 “Red October” is more than just a hyped-up sneaker from the 2010s. It’s a symbol of the end of an era. Nike’s partnership with one of the driving forces of music and pop culture had come to a close. Both parties would move on with continued success. A good number of people might link West to his extensive catalog of Adidas products at this point, with the Air Yeezy 2 and its predecessor becoming afterthoughts to them. But the attention this release commanded, and the fervor it inspired, may never be surpassed by another West sneaker.
Honorable Mention
Nike Kyrie 1
by Mike DeStefano
Kyrie Irving’s first two seasons weren’t nearly as glamorous as the years he has experienced since. Drafted in 2011 as the number-one overall pick after playing just eleven games as a freshman at Duke University, he was the sole bright spot on an otherwise lackluster Cleveland Cavaliers squad at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. That would all change in 2014, when LeBron James announced his return to Ohio and the Cavs transformed into a contender literally overnight. It would also mean that Irving’s All-Star-caliber ability would finally matter.
That year, Irving became the first pro basketball player Nike had added to its signature team since Kevin Durant in 2008. Irving had been a Nike endorser his whole professional career, but his level of play proved that he was worthy of his own line.
The Kyrie 1 was simple in its appearance. Designed by Leo Chang, the mid-top featured a Hyperfuse mesh upper, neoprene tongue, and Zoom Air cushioning in the forefoot. It had a spiked heel panel, which gave the sneaker more of a lifestyle look inspired by luxury fashion, and shark-tooth-esque outsole tread that extended up onto the toe portion of the midsole—a nod to the architecture of the Sydney Opera House.
The model—priced at only $110 when James’s shoes, for example, hovered around $200—gave basketball fans an affordable signature option. Its debut colorway, dubbed the “Dream,” was well received by fans when it hit shelves in December 2014. Other color schemes took inspiration from things like Irving’s birth country of Australia or Blue Devils alma mater. The most notable was probably the “Uncle Drew,” a promotional version limited to 150 units, coinciding with a Pepsi ad campaign in which Irving dressed up as a senior citizen and schooled unsuspecting players in pickup games.
When Irving debuted the model on court at Madison Square Garden against the Knicks in December 2014, he recorded his then-career high of 37 points. Had a knee injury not forced him out of the 2015 NBA Finals, it also could have been the shoe the point guard won his first championship in.
Irving eventually became an NBA champion in 2016, hitting the clinching three-pointer in Game 7 to overcome a 3–1 deficit against the Warriors. His line, meanwhile, grew into one of Nike’s most successful signature series to date, proving there were players beyond James, Durant, and Kobe Bryant worthy of carrying the torch for the brand.