Nike, Kanye West’s Air Yeezy II drops June 9
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The Nike Air Yeezy II, the follow-up to the brand’s 2009 collaborative shoe with rapper/designer Kanye West, will be released June 9 at select retailers worldwide, Nike announced Wednesday.
According to the news release, while the original Yeezy used a late-’80s basketball shoe as its starting point, the II is built on a tennis shoe outsole (the Air Tech Challenge II, to be specific), and the overall silhouette is comparatively slimmer than that of its predecessor. Part of this is thanks to the elimination of unnecessary padding and partly due to the fact that it’s tailored to the shape of Kanye West’s (presumably narrower) foot.
There are nearly enough animal references in the Air Yeezy II to stock a zoo, including anaconda-textured leather quarter panels and eyelets, a molded area above the heel with raised bumps that resemble the armored underside of a reptile, a bird design on the tongue, and a parade of critter hieroglyphics (spelling out ‘YZY’ we’re told) across the loop strap.
The limited-edition shoe, with an MSRP of $245, will be released in two colorways -- ‘platinum’ (we’re going with ‘two slightly different shades of gray’) with the sparest of orange accents, and black with accents in pink. Based on the photos we’ve seen, both versions of the shoe have a sole in a shade of minty green.
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-- Adam Tschorn