October 4th was the Grand Opening of the Niketown iD studio in New York. They opened the studio with the option to design fan favorites such as the Air Max 1, the Air Max 90, the Dunk High and the Dunk Low. Newly added to the id list was the Classic BW and you are able to design any of the sneakers that are offered on their online site. The studio is located in the back of the 5th floor around the corner from the elevators. In the waiting area are nice leather seats with Nike sneakers embossed or lasered on them reminiscent of the pillows and coasters at 255. There's a wood panel displaying the various sneakers and a book with different id designs for reference I assume. The actual design area is located behind 2 glass doors. Not nearly as much space as the old design studio but it serves its purpose. Whatever your designing on the computer in front of you is also displayed on a flat screen television hanging on the wall. This helps you see your design better if the computer screen is too small for you. People accustomed to the Elizabeth studio will miss the free water (voss) and soda (coke, diet coke & sprite) they use to offer.
In my opinion, the design material options for the studio sneakers are horrible. Nike should take an online poll to actually see what the consumers would actually like (this would help you Nike). Echoed on several forums, is the wish that Nike would put back the mesh toebox on the running sneakers. That simple option would have created more consumers for this line of id products. The studio options are crinkled patent leather, plain leather and oakwood leather. The crinkle patent leather has to be the worse option I have seen in id over the last 2 years. It looks like crumpled candy wrappers. There's a air max 90 with brown crinkled patent leather that looks like nasty melted chocolate in a wrapper. The only place crinkled patent leather look o.k is on the swoosh (picture below). The Oakwood leather is o.k. when used under the black or brown option. It actually does look like wood to some extent. Regular leather is just that, colored leather with nothing extra. I prefer doing an iD online at home with the animal options for the Air Max 1 and regular patent leather (denim only in toebox sucks) for the 90 over traveling to midtown to get contrast stitching. If I decide to do a studio sneaker, it will be regular leather and brown or black oakwood just to see how it comes out.
Employees have to wear a pair of stamped kicks until their id's arrive
SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL
Oh yeah, Air Max 95's will allow different colors going down the sides like the Cowboy Air Max 95's....umm supposedly.
One Response so far.