{"id":6666,"date":"2020-01-21T13:10:55","date_gmt":"2020-01-21T12:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/52.30.207.235\/the-comeback-of-the-year-nike-blazer-and-its-history\/"},"modified":"2020-01-21T13:10:55","modified_gmt":"2020-01-21T12:10:55","slug":"the-comeback-of-the-year-nike-blazer-and-its-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/the-comeback-of-the-year-nike-blazer-and-its-history\/","title":{"rendered":"The Comeback of the Year. Nike Blazer and its History"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Nike Blazer is Nike’s first basketball shoe. This fact alone is enough to make them a model full of history. But there’s much more than that to their legacy. At the start of a new year that promises to be very fruitful for the iconic silhouette, we review the amazing history of the Nike Blazer, from its birth to today.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Nike<\/p>\n

The Nike Blazer<\/strong><\/a> was launched in 1973<\/strong>. Nike entered the universe of specially designed basketball shoes with them. At that time, the Swoosh brand had only been on the market for nine years and had just been renamed, saying goodbye to its old name “Blue Ribbon Sports”<\/strong>. Initially, it was a company founded by Bill Bowerman<\/strong> and Phil Knight<\/strong> that distributed Japanese shoes in the United States. In 1971 the Swoosh was introduced, designed by Carolyn Davidson<\/strong>, and the company began designing its own shoes under the name Nike<\/a>. Among them, the Blazer.<\/p>\n

A simple, smooth and white silhouette, with the brand logo as the great protagonist of its design. The upper was made of leather, the tongue of nylon mesh and the rubber sole was created from a vulcanization process<\/strong>. At that time, the field of footwear had not seen any great technological advances, and in fact not even Nike, one of the pioneers in the research of sports performance systems, had yet created the Air. In the world of basketball, the brand was still at the beginning. It would be twelve years before the company’s big signing would take place: Michael Jordan<\/strong>. In 1973 the basketball symbol that Nike identified with the most was the local team: the Portland Trail Blazers<\/strong>. So the company baptized its first basketball silhouette with the same name.<\/p>\n

\"Nike<\/p>\n

George Gervin<\/strong>, aka “The Iceman”<\/strong>, was the first basketball player to wear the Blazer. A member of the NBA<\/strong>, the player was one of the biggest stars on the court in the 1970s. So the pair was a success. In matches, Gervin started wearing Blazer with the name “ICEMAN” instead of the traditional “NIKE” on the heel. It was an innovative action that led to the movement of exclusive player editions that today fill the game fields; an edition that, by the way, was never released. We wish.<\/p>\n

\"ICEMAN\"<\/p>\n

Over time, sneakers began to embrace great technological systems and remarkable advances that made each shoe a compendium of surprising technical features, ready to get the most out of the athlete. The Nike Blazer, which lacked all of this, gradually took a back seat. In the basketball scene we stopped seeing them, although they did not disappear completely. The skateboarding culture found in this model the perfect shoe to do tricks on the board, since the vulcanized sole boasts optimal grip with this type of material. Good performance, simple esthetics and affordable prices. They had it all to be the new must-have for skateboarders<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It was the urban artist Futura 2000<\/strong> who first had the honor of launching his own collaboration with Nike, creating a customized version of the Blazer in 2003. In shades of green and navy, the Futura edition was released in a limited quantity of just one thousand pairs, which would soon be highly sought after by sneakerheads around the world. The event contributed to the Blazers being revalued and the public considering them a silhouette to be taken into account, despite the lack of technology. In fact, this characteristic became the strong point and the presentation card of the sneaker. Simplicity and classicism. Two years later, Lance Mountain<\/strong> announced the development of the Blazer SB<\/strong>, implementing critical changes to the model to make it even more optimal for skaters. This is how the Blazer with Air system and a padded tongue to absorb impacts was born.<\/p>\n

\"Nike<\/p>\n

In 2006, the collaboration between Supreme<\/strong> and Nike marked a historic milestone. The streetwear brand created its own version of the Blazer, giving rise to one of the most sought-after sneakers in the world today. This edition featured a padded pattern upper, a snake print Swoosh and a checkered ribbon with a golden ring on the heel part that was inspired by Gucci<\/strong>. The Supreme Blazer in its three colorways, red, black and white, marked a turning point in the mass market for sneakers. Today, still worn, they are resold for four-figure prices and are one of the most sought-after jewels in sneaker collections.<\/p>\n

\"Supreme<\/p>\n

Blazers would later be reinterpreted in new collaborations. Comme des Gar\u00e7ons<\/strong>, Fragment Design<\/strong> and, again, Supreme<\/strong> in 2016 would mark the background of Nike’s associations to generate new versions of this silhouette, always respecting its minimalism and the discretion of its design. In 2017 it would arrive to the SB family Virgil Abloh<\/strong> with Off-White<\/strong>. The most hype designer of our time deconstructed the silhouette to launch a Blazer with all the distinctive elements of his firm, giving a twist to the concept. The Off-White x Nike Blazer SB in their different colour schemes are part of the Revealing collaborative collection and feature industrial details and characteristic symbols, such as the stitching, the quilting and the label. Serena Williams<\/strong>, by the way, has her own “Rainbow” make-up, with a pink and purple degradation on the midsole and sole. Abloh’s Blazers have become another great object of desire in Nike’s SB line.<\/p>\n

\"Nike<\/p>\n

With almost half a century of history, the Nike Blazer is one of the few models that can boast that it has never changed, yet continues to make its way onto the urban scene. There are many sneakers that have managed to make an amazing history, but have always survived by implementing modifications that update the model and adapt it to its present time. Today, Nike Blazer’s legacy continues and promises to experience one of its best moments in streetwear culture this year. Whatever the reason, the truth is that we can assure that the model continues to stand as an icon of the past, of the present and, without a doubt, of the future as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nike Blazer is Nike’s first basketball shoe. This fact alone is enough to make them a model full of history. But there’s much more than that to their legacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22213,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,63],"tags":[],"powerkit_post_featured":[4,7,5,6,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-6666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-noticias"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6666"},{"taxonomy":"powerkit_post_featured","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/powerkit_post_featured?post=6666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}