The Sneaker Nike Made Twice

A Shoe For The Fancy Elites

Nike is known for doing some amazing collabs, sometimes without even making it an official collaboration (like the Heineken “collab” that we discussed last week).

But what if there was a more, let’s say “prestigious” collaboration? One that was just a little fancier, and hurt the credit card a bit more?

Well, that is what this “jewelry shoe” accomplished.

Meet the Nike Air Force 1 Tiffany & Co. 1837.

The Tiffany’s

This was one of the most hyped releases of 2023, to say the least. A brand as large and as luxurious as Tiffany, making a shoe with Nike, was huge.

Even sneakerheads who were not common purchasers of Tiffany’s could appreciate the shoe for both the design and the high-status brand it carried behind it.

This shoe featured the Tiffany blue, or as Tiffany and Co. calls it “1837 blue”, swoosh mark, with black suede everywhere else. Some fans loved this, and others were upset that the whole shoe wasn’t Tiffany blue and that they chose to make the blue the minority color.

Not only was this shoe a clash of two notable brands, but the stock and price reflected it. The retail price for these was $400, and they were extremely limited. So limited, in fact, that the resell price is sitting at around $1,000 which is $600 over the retail for anyone who did not have a calculator on them.

But what you may have not known (or you did because it’s old news) is that this thing had a doppelganger. Well, not really. Let me explain.

The Unofficial Official Tiffany’s?

In 2005, there were Tiffany’s released. Tiffany Dunks. But they weren’t Tiffany Dunks, they were just called that by fans.

This Dunk was actually a collab between Nike and Diamond Supply Co. The Dunk features the same hex color as the Tiffany brand, which is how it got its nickname.

The designer of the shoe, Nick Tershay, said:

“Diamond was just a hardware company that mainly only skateboarders knew about, but luckily people liked the name, and my T-shirt graphics were doing well outside of skate. There was already a following with streetwear kids and sneakerhead people, but when we dropped the shoe it took it to another level, because the brand started to get a lot of exposure from Sole Collector and NikeTalk and Hypebeast. Everyone was talking about Diamond because of the shoe. That’s a blessing, man, because then I had a whole new fan base besides the skateboarders.

(From Complex Interview)

The Unofficials Did Better?

Well, Dunks that looked like the Tiffany’s turned out to be more hyped than the actual collaboration itself.

Maybe it was because of the look, the timing, the supply/demand, it was a dunk instead of an AF1, or because most of the shoe was that ideal Tiffany color. It is probably a mix of all of these things. It is said to be one of the greatest Dunks of all time, which might just justify why the price is what it is.

Which is $4,000+ resell. Makes the $400 AF1 Tiffany’s seem cheap, for both retail and resell.

So there you have it. One of the most hype sneakers that dropped this year. Yet the one from nearly 20 years ago, which was not even related to the Tiffany brand itself, is still a hell of a lot more appreciated.

Which one do you think is better?