Why some of Nike's senior designers are abandoning the brand

Complex magazine recently announced that, according to some anonymous sources, since last November some of Nike's top designers have abandoned the brand. Among them would be Sergio Lozano, Nike veteran since 1990 and father of the Air Max 95, and Nate Jobe, one of the architects of The Ten collaboration between Nike and Virgil Abloh. The list also includes director of 3D Footwear Design, Chad Knight, and Global Senior Design Director, Tom Rushbrook. Of course the most illustrious figure to have left the brand is Lozano, "author" also of the Air Max 98, the Air Tuned Max and the Air Max 2003 – but neither he nor Nike have released comments about the separation. Only Chad Knight knows the next step: Head of Cyber-wear for the metaverse Wilder World – as well as NFT artist. A career step that was therefore dictated by work ambition. Here's what the designer told Complex:

«I want to help create that future and that was not an opportunity at Nike given the old guard’s and MBA’s lack of interest in ideas that aren’t their own. Unfortunately you cannot have ideas about subject matter unless you possess knowledge of it».

New and old guards

Beyond Knight's statement and the criticisms it implies, this episode is very significant as it demonstrates a separation between the "new" and the "old" guard: on the one hand the new digital disciplines, immersive design in 3D, the futuristic metaverse on platforms such as Wilder World and the new frontier of digital creativity; on the other hand, the classic world is immersed in the history of Beaverton – which in this story can become any symbolic location that represents a traditional, trans-generational but above all physical business. Not that Nike is alien to change, on the contrary, the company has recently opened the Nikeland mini-metaverse on Roblox – although perhaps it is safe to assume that Chad Knight's ambitions were broader if he decided to leave his position within such an important brand.

The episode also signals a very interesting and likely misalignment between the desires and ambitions of digital creatives towards the metaverse and the prudent slowness with which brands are approaching the new market, attracted by a billionaire turnover, but mindful of how ephemeral certain platforms can be: just think of the speed with which the memory of Clubhouse has been lost which,  at the beginning of the pandemic, it seemed set to become the new social network of the moment.

A difficult quarter

Credits: Laurent Bentil

Credits: Jeremy Alvarez

Credits: Jeremy Alvarez

Credits: Jeremy Alvarez

Credits: Laurent Bentil

The release of this group of senior creatives from Nike represents the last episode of a certainly difficult quarter for the Beaverton brand. Within three weeks, in fact, the incredibly lucrative collaboration with Travis Scott was suspended following the tragedy of Astroworld, perhaps ending forever one of the last titans of collab sneakers; but also the new release of the Off-White™ ️ Nike Blazer Low was put on stand-by following the death of Virgil Abloh while, in the rest of the world, delays in the supply chain led to a mass cancellation of orders as well as problems in the industrial production of sneakers. Nothing from which the brand can not recover within a quarter, clear, especially considering how the last collaboration with Off-White™ has been postponed and not canceled - in a way not unlike the collaboration with Kobe Bryant that arrived in store six months after the pre-established date.