Kim Jones talks about his NikeLab collaboration launching this week

By

Cassidy Mantor

Published
Jul 15, 2016

Nike is scoring high-profile designer collaborations, such as NikeLab x Kim Jones: Packable Sport Style, which will launch this week.

In anticipation of the upcoming release, the famed British designer and Men's Style Director of Louis Vuitton recently spoke about the inspiration for this collaboration.

Travel has been an integral part of his life and a major passion of his, and the NikeLab collection will focus on the Olympics in Rio and the items athletes would find complementary to that journey.

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Jones said of the collection, "It’s about a utilitarian approach to design and function to give the customer something they can use in different ways. That’s what I was thinking about — how to make it useful to the wearer."

The collection is very youth focused and features a color pallet of neons and neutrals stemming from Nike's old Air Max colorways.

Jones explained, "It was about taking the DNA of what Nike stuff is all about and mixing it together, taking elements of all the different things I liked and putting it together."

Jones hit on the relevance of athleisure as why he wanted to work with Nike. Footwear is part of this collaboration. He deemed it an honor to have a Nike shoe.

"People wear sneakers all the time now, so comfort and practicality are the key things. That thing of 'time is luxury' is also important to think about. If products can make things easier for you and more simple, that’s important in life — as well as aesthetics, obviously."

When asked why travel was valuable to him, Jones explained, "You have to go a long way to find things now, but if you don’t go there you don’t know what you’re going to see. It’s fine to look on the Internet or in a book, but I like to see, touch, look at things and be inspired by culture, wildlife, people... I’m quite sensory in that way."

The NikeLab x Kim Jones collection launches 7/23 online and at select NikeLab stores.