2018 Nike React Element 87

by Justin Tejada

For those who came of age around the time of the release of the shoe that leads off this book—the Air Jordan 1—there was a shared adolescent conception of what the future would look like. Looking ahead to the year 2018 from the year 1985, it was easy to imagine a world filled with robot housekeepers and flying cars à la The Jetsons.

As for sneakers, it was hard to even comprehend what footwear might look like thirty-plus years in the future. For those who did dare to imagine, their thoughts likely tended toward the Nike Mag they saw in Back to the Future Part II, with its power-lacing capabilities. One thing is certain: no one in 1985 thought that the Air Jordan 1, with the simple addition of a backwards Swoosh or a zip tie, would still be one of the most popular shoes as the second decade of the twenty-first century drew to a close.

That’s what made the release of the Nike React Element 87 so refreshing. Here was a shoe whose aesthetics were more akin to what kids in 1985 envisioned futuristic sneakers looking like. Here was a shoe that felt like it could be a reference point and design inspiration for a shoe that comes out in the year 2055. Here was a shoe that felt new in a bold way, that planted a flag in the sand.

Even the way the React Element 87 was revealed reflected its boldness. In the overwhelmingly male domain of sneaker culture, the first public glimpse of the React Element 87 was on the feet of a woman.

A light rain and fog fell on Paris as day broke on the morning of March 2, 2018. But by midday the sun was peeking out when Jun Takahashi sent his Undercover Fall 2018 ready-to-wear collection down the runway. The fashion show took place in tents at the Pavillon Ledoyen, one of the oldest restaurants in Paris, dating back to the late 1700s. Situated near the Seine, the Champs-Élysées Garden, and the Place de la Concorde, Pavillon Ledoyen is rumored to be where Napoleon met his first wife, and it was a favored haunt of artists such as Monet, Degas, and Flaubert. More recently it has been operated by renowned chef Yannick Alléno and has three Michelin stars.

But the menu wasn’t what people were admiring on that second day in March. Instead it was the feet of actress Sadie Sink, who led off the Undercover show. As the music of crooner Paul Anka played, Sink, who portrays Max on the Netflix show Stranger Things, strode down the runway in a red hoodie, track pants, and beanie that framed her red hair. On her feet were a pair of React Element 87s in a chameleon-like colorway.

The choice of a Stranger Things cast member was fitting for the Undercover collection, which had undercurrents of both adolescence and things not being what they seem running through it.

The phrase “Total Youth” featured prominently on many garments, and the denim on what appeared to be a ripped pair of jeans was revealed to be a dyed sweatshirt jersey fabric.

This sense of youth and revelation came through on the React Element 87s that went down the runway as well. The colors seemed to be pulled from the loudest options in a Crayola box. And what seemed at first glance to be a traditional upper material was, in fact, translucent, allowing the colorway to morph to that of whatever socks the wearer had on underneath.

The brashness of the “Undercover” colorways was contrasted by the staid nature of the first inline versions to launch, a creamy “Sail” and a black “Anthracite.” But, in a testament to the overall design of the React Element 87, the black and white versions were no less hyped and coveted.

As bold as the React Element 87 was on that first Parisian glimpse, the shoe does contain design cues that are familiar in the recent oeuvre of Nike’s hype-register footwear. The translucent upper comes in the wake of Virgil Abloh’s 2017 “The Ten” project, which saw similar treatments to sneakers. (The see-through trend was also seen on various sneakers in the 2000s.) Even the low-slung Swoosh has a precedent in the avant-goofy branding seen on the uber-hyped Tom Sachs x NikeCraft Mars Yard model.

But for a shoe that debuted on one of high fashion’s biggest stages, the React Element 87 started off rather humbly. “The whole concept behind this was, ‘How do we make a basic staple jogger feel more comfortable?’” said Darryl Matthews, the Nike Sportswear Innovation Designer who led the project.

One of the most distinct characteristics of the shoe is the tooling on the midsole and outsole. But in an age when 3D printers and CAD designs are incredibly accessible, members of Nike Sportswear’s special projects team went with a more rudimentary and tactile approach. It was as simple as a block of foam and a Dremel tool.

“The whole process was really a back-to-basics exercise that taught us new ways to make a shoe look and feel great while also harnessing the power of cutting-edge computation design,” Matthews said.

After developing pressure maps of people who spent a lot of time on their feet, designers literally just started boring holes into foam in an attempt to provide support where the foot needed it and remove it where it didn’t. While the drilling was designed to serve a very practical purpose, it had the added benefit of looking incredibly cool.

But drilling alone wasn’t going to cut it. Matthews and his team developed an algorithm that was used to take what they’d learned about foam densities from the drilling and scale it across all the different sizes that would be required to make a full production run, although shipping a shoe to customers wasn’t a top-of-mind consideration.

“This wasn’t a project that was going to market at this point. This wasn’t even a React project,” he said. “This was just an exploration of how to change the durometer of basic EVA foam, to make it more comfortable.”

The futuristic-looking midsole was paired with an equally avant-garde upper, which also had a very DIY origin story. On a plane to South Korea, Matthews sketched his idea on a Post-It note. He had none of the tech specs required to turn his drawing into an actual prototype but was able to work with the factory to get something created in a week.

While it may be difficult for the untrained eye to spot, the React Element 87 was inspired by the 1983 Nike Internationalist, in a move that was driven by office politics as much as by design. Matthews knew that then–Nike CEO Mark Parker, who would need to sign off on the React Element 87, had created the Internationalist. So Matthews shrewdly incorporated elements of Parker’s creation, such as the height of the collar, the vamp length, and the tongue shape, into the design in hopes that it might help get the project approved.

“I wanted to have an element of the past for the future,” Matthews said. “So you get this nostalgic futuristic look, which at the time wasn’t really happening, and it landed right at the sweet spot. You could take the Swoosh off this, and this would [still] be a Nike shoe.”

Yet for all the nods to the Internationalist, the React Element 87 doesn’t look like anything that came before it, and that’s an important part of what makes it so special. It feels like the trunk of a new family tree rather than an outer branch of an existing one.

It isn’t so much that each of the, ahem, elements of the React Element 87 is unique. Nike had made shoes with translucent uppers previously. Ditto for cork insoles and exposed zigzag stitching. But it’s in the mix that the greatness of the shoe is revealed. It’s a sneaker that feels both deconstructed and completely polished. The asymmetrical design of the tongue makes little sense, but somehow on the React Element 87 that quirky, design-for-design’s-sake whimsy comes across as a feature, not a bug. And even though the tongue shape may not lead to the most comfortable sneaker collar, somehow it feels worth it.

Initial feelings about the shoe internally were mixed. It didn’t resonate with some of the older executives at Nike, but after brand collaborators such as Tom Sachs, Undercover, and Abloh started expressing their fondness for the React Element 87, moods shifted. Matthews says Abloh even wanted the style to be part of “The Ten.”

“We knew we had a banger, but we never knew it would be received in this way,” Matthews told Sneaker Freaker in 2018.

He also didn’t know his creation would be showing up in that fateful Undercover show. Someone at Nike had given the React Element 87s to Undercover without being certain they were cleared to go down the runway. As testament to the improvised nature of the entire process, parts of the shoe were actually painted on, which helps explain why the runway versions were different from the eventual production ones. When someone sent Matthews a picture of his creation on the runway, he was shocked. “But you know what? It helped. It brought a lot of attention,” he said.

That early attention, however, meant sneaker fans had to wait a long time to actually get their hands on a pair. Nike likes to showcase new innovations in performance silhouettes. While React foam had already been used in Nike Basketball styles, the brand wanted to make a bigger splash around its release in a running shoe. So even though React Element 87 was ready, it couldn’t be released. It needed to wait in line until the Epic React Flyknit performance running shoe was completed.

Once the React Element 87 did come out, people who got their hands on a pair were treated to another surprise: the translucent textile used on the upper gave the wearer’s foot an important role in the overall look of the shoe. That role hinges on whether someone is wearing the shoes barefoot or with socks. With the React Element 87, it’s possible to wear the same shoe ten days in a row and have it look vastly different each day.

“I wasn’t really aware of the transparent nature of the upper until it was in hand,” said Ben Jacobs, brand director at Stadium Goods, echoing a sentiment shared by many early adopters. “So having to think about how the color of my socks would change the appearance of the shoe definitely took it to a whole other level in terms of wardrobe coordination.”

“People are drawn to the shoe because it has layers. It’s not a flat shoe,” said Matthews, who in hindsight wishes he’d included a pair of socks with each pair. “It’s like when Nike exposed the Air bag, except now we’re able to expose the inside of the shoe, too.”

Given the sneaker’s age, it’s important to remember that the impact of the React Element 87 won’t be felt for years to come. If you look at some of the other hyped sneakers that came out in 2018, the majority of them were either actual retros, like the “Black/Cement” Air Jordan III, or reinterpretations of retros, like the Diamond x Nike SB Dunk Low “Canary” and the Sean Wotherspoon x Nike Air Max 1/97. That isn’t a knock on any of those shoes. They are all memorable in their own way and are sure to have an enduring appeal. But they don’t mark time the way a new sneaker silhouette does.

Shoes like the React Element 87 or the Nike Air Fear of God 1, which also dropped in 2018, bring something unique to the table with their newness. For starters, it renders moot arguments from so-called “old heads” that new styles—an Off-White Air Jordan 1, for example—can’t compare to the OGs. The initial colorways of the React Element 87, both the Undercover collaboration and the quieter black and white iterations, are the OGs for this silhouette. They are the styles that kids who came of age in the late 2010s will be nostalgic for when they reach their 30s. And they will belong solely to them. They won’t be driven by their nostalgia layered on top of another generation’s nostalgia, as is the case with many retros.

Another refreshing thing about the React Element 87 is that for all the attention that the Undercover collaborations received, the “Sail” and “Anthracite” colorways captured the imagination just as much. It was nice to see a shoe succeed on its own merits and not because of cosign from a hot artist or designer.

“It’s something that is few and far between these days. It generally takes a collaborator to help companies take risks and think outside of what’s expected,” said Jacobs. “It’s nice to see that they can continue to innovate and push boundaries, and create something that’s new and different but also feels right on time for the era.”

Talking about “purity” in sneakers is a fool’s errand these days, but the excitement around the React Element 87 did seem driven more by consumers genuinely liking and wanting the shoe and less by a desire to make a quick buck on the resale market. Although, more than a year and a half after the shoe’s initial release, it is still selling for above twice its retail price on the aftermarket.

It’s unclear how sustainable that demand for the shoe is. No subsequent release has achieved the acclaim of the debut colorways. In 2019, Kendrick Lamar developed a version of the sneaker’s opaque—and arguably more comfortable—cousin, the React Element 55, that featured a marbleized upper that caused some ripples but didn’t turn into a full-fledged hype phenomenon.

But that does nothing to diminish the status of the React Element 87. It may be a one-hit wonder, but that one hit was pretty damn good. It may be a shoe that is destined to become a cult classic in the way of a style like the Nike Air Spiridon, whose fans may never eclipse a Jordan 1 in number but whose passions run no less deep. Or it may just be that the React Element 87 was ahead of its time. And it may take the rest of the world a little longer to catch up.

Honorable Mention
Nike Air Fear of God 1

by Ben Felderstein

Collaborating with Nike on a colorway of an existing sneaker is a milestone in any designer’s career. But Fear of God’s Jerry Lorenzo took it a step further, with the brand allowing him to create original silhouettes for it, an opportunity few receive.

Details of the Air Fear of God 1 started surfacing during the summer of 2018, and the model was finally revealed that September, in a short film teasing Lorenzo’s forthcoming Nike collection.

Lorenzo worked with Nike Basketball footwear design director Leo Chang on the shoe, which, in addition to borrowing from an existing Fear of God silhouette, was indebted to the Nike Air Huarache Light, alongside the Air More Uptempo, the Air Pressure, and the Air Max 180. “His attention to detail is insane,” Chang said to Complex in 2018. “He took us to another level with the craft, with just sweating every single thing.” Lorenzo can’t reasonably claim his design’s merits come from Nike innovation. He’s described the FOG 1 as a performance shoe, but this is not a sneaker that’s been through the Nike Sports Research Lab-level of testing. Instead, as with his clothing designs, the solution is in the shape—the designer flew in his own last from Italy to get the lines just right. Regardless, Lorenzo sees it as a model without compromise.

“You’re gonna be able to go to the club in that and dunk on somebody, and both at the highest level,” he told Complex in 2018.

With the latter in mind, P.J. Tucker, the Houston Rockets forward renowned for his sneaker collection, laced up a pair for the first half of a November 2018 game against the Brooklyn Nets, heightening the anticipation for the model’s release.

But despite its appearance on an NBA court, the FOG 1 is a luxury sneaker, which is why it comes in a premium orange box, accompanied by dust bags, alternate-colored laces, toggles, and a tote. All of that, combined with the shoe’s premium build, amounts to a retail price of $395. Since its initial release, in black, the model has arrived in hues ranging from the bright and bold “Orange Pulse” and “Frosted Spruce” to the more muted “Sail” and “Light Bone.” Nike’s basketball division has also continued to work with Lorenzo.

“I was trying to propose something that makes a kid feel the same way I felt the first time I had a pair of Jordans,” Lorenzo told Complex of his collaboration. “That’s lofty, and that’s beyond what maybe anyone would think of a Nike collab, but if that’s . . . If you’re gonna get the opportunity, that’s the chase. You don’t want to fall short of that.”