Inspiration Behind Nike’s 2010 All-Star Shoes

nike basketball just dropped a stellar line-up of shoes for nba all-star weekend 2010, including a kobe v, lebron vii, hyperize, and kd2, not to mention a handful of air force 1s. a lot of thought and detail was put into their design, and one of my homies erick posted this article that dives into their inspiration and thought process behind the shoes. click each picture to enlarge.

here’s a small excerpt, make sure to peep the rest of the article over at Sole Collector.

NDP: What’s the theme of the pattern?
Goto: It’s a wood grain pattern inspired by ranches and all of the buildings throughout Texas and in Dallas. The creative direction behind the graphics is Benny Montoya from Apparel, and in Basketball, Michael Spoljaric helped out with direction. We came up with the whole Texas western theme, and then that continues with the sockliner with the patches. On the wood grain, you’ll actually see some stars integrated into the pattern, which is a cool, subtle hit towards All-Star.
Rogers: All of the graphic hits on the panels are 3M, too.

NDP: And the insole-stitched patch—is that specific to each Conference or each player?
Goto: For all of the Western Conference ones, it has a pattern of stars that represent the number of times that the Western All Stars have won the game. For the East and West there’s a different type base for the way they’re written.
Rogers: Erick also wanted the patch to look like it was branded, like a cow.
Goto: Everything on the outside looks super modern, and then on the inside you have a nice little touch of Dallas.

NDP: The laces are all waxed?
Goto: Yeah, the laces are all waxed, and even the material of the laces, like on the Hyperize, it’s got that rubbery finish, and we thought that was a cool, new material that we haven’t used yet.