The Nike x Off-White Air Force 1 "Black" Is Literally Museum-Quality

Jake Woolf
Updated
The Nike x Off-White Air Force 1 "Black" Is Literally Museum-Quality

Last year, Nike x Off-White's "The Ten" collaboration was easily the biggest sneaker collab of the year. Of the ten sneakers released as part of the set, the Air Jordan 1 "Chicago" reigned supreme, but the Air Force 1 wasn't far behind. At the seminars and workshops Nike threw surrounding the release, some lucky fans even got to create their own Air Force 1 kicks and essentially play designer for a day, while special edition Off-White AF1s were released at events like ComplexCon. And the hype is continuing into 2018. Not only is a white version of Abloh's Air Jordan 1 on the horizon, but today, a black iteration of his Air Force 1 design is dropping exclusively at NYC's Museum of Modern Art (known to most simply as "MoMa").

The shoes don't change much structurally about the classic low-top AF1, but they make up for it in pure style points. The Swoosh on this limited-edition model is done up in metallic silver, there's an orange pull tab near the back, and Abloh's signature "AIR" quotes are printed on the midsole. These details are definitely cool, but to us, the sleeper hit of the drop are the special edition Nike x MoMa socks releasing with the shoes, the ones that take beloved Nike hooping socks and give them a fine-art spin. (Seriously—when else are any of us going to get a chance to grab these?)

Abloh always references his artistic heroes in his runway collections—whether we're talking Art History 101 figures like Marcel Duchamp, or new-age innovators like Raf Simons—so it makes at least a little sense that the shoes would be dropping at one of NYC's most prestigious museums. Then again, inviting a bunch of hypebeasts to line up outside a museum that is host to some of the most valuable art in the world seems, at least on paper, like a wild scene. A word of warning: MoMa, weknow you guys are familiar with folks lining up for must-see exhibitions. But we're not sure you've seen anything like this.

Available now the MoMA Design Store, 11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019