Nike Won All-Star Weekend

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Good morning, friends! Welcome back to The Kicks You Wear. Thanks so much for reading today. I appreciate you giving me a bit of your time. Hope your weekend was awesome. The mixture of All-Star Weekend and Valentine’s Day is always an interesting one in the Sykes household.

Quick hits:

• Demna’s touch was at All-Star Weekend. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was spotted in a Gucci SS26 look. Sharp.
• Lululemon’s leggings are back in the news again for a second time in a month. Big yikes, guys.
• Kawhi Leonard’s latest signature shoe with New Balance, the Kawhi 5, is coming soon. The NBA star debuted it at the All-Star game.

Alright. Let’s get into it.

Nike’s Big All-Star Weekend

Two months ago, during Nike’s crucial second-quarter earnings call, CEO Elliott Hill promised investors a big weekend from the brand and its three arms (Nike, Converse, Jordan Brand) during NBA All-Star Weekend.

“In February, at the NBA All-Star Game in L.A., you’ll see an example of how our 3 basketball brands and their product lineups will come together under the sport offence,” he said, projecting confidence in the brand’s new strategy.

The results: Hill promised, and the company delivered. Nike, Jordan Brand and Converse won the weekend.

• Nike released what was arguably the brand’s best All-Star collection in almost a decade and released these incredible All-Star Game warm-ups that shockingly sold out immediately after the game began.
• Jordan Brand released several models early, including the LA Air Jordan 4 and the “Bin” Air Jordan 6. Union LA, Fragment and Jordan also released their latest Air Jordan 1 collaboration.
• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander stole headlines with the Shai 001 in a new, luxurious “truffle” colourway, elevating the model.

This is the first time in years that all three brands have released new product centred around the All-Star game. The buzz was overwhelmingly positive. The vibes were great.

Why it worked: Nike didn’t just focus on retro offerings as it has in the past. There was a solid mix of retro Jordans coupled with the fresh, new models of the day. The brand centred all of that through its weekend activations. It also partnered with wholesalers like Foot Locker and Shoe Palace to expand its presence further.

We learned two things:

• One: Nike still has its fastball. That retro stuff? It still works, man. I don’t care what y’all say. Call for innovation all you want. The sold-out queues and long lines say that when somebody places retro Jordans in front of you, the needle still moves.
• Two: The brand has really hit the nail on the head with its newer models. The Ja 3, A’One, Shai 001, Book 2 and even the new non-signature GT Cut 4 received a lot of attention from fans through the weekend. We’ll see what the sales data says down the line, but there seem to be legitimate franchises here that Nike can lean on.

Why that matters: The NBA All-Star Game and the weekend itself, certainly isn’t what it used to be. But this is still a moment that every brand in sportswear shows up for in some capacity. For Nike to go out of its way to assert itself the way it did in this moment speaks to the current brand’s mindset. It was clear Nike had no intention of letting this moment pass as it might’ve in years past.

To put it simply, this felt like an old Nike moment. That’s a sentiment I find myself coming back to more and more often these days.

What’s next: If Nike went all out like this for All-Star, I can only imagine what it has planned for the World Cup in June.

Lifestyle Works for Asics

Asics has been on fire for the last few years and it doesn’t look like the Japanese sportswear brand’s hot run will come to a close anytime soon.

By the numbers: The company’s net sales increased by 19.5 percent year-on-year to ¥810.9 billion ($5.39 billion) in 2025. Its operating profit of $948 million is up by 42.4 percent year-on-year.

• The company’s biggest driver was its lifestyle business. Asics SportStyle saw a 43.6 percent sales increase year-on-year, generating ¥141.3 billion ($920 million).
• Onitsuka Tiger, the brand’s retro-styled lifestyle arm, saw its net sales increase by 43 percent year-on-year.
• Both SportStyle and Onitsuka saw more than ¥100.0 billion ($666 million) in net sales at the same time for the first time in Asics’ long history.

Between the lines: It’s rare that you see lifestyle product working so well for a brand. Usually, that’s just a small sliver of business — usually, something more functional like running or some other performance category is a bigger driver. But here, for Asics, lifestyle is propelling the company into the industry’s upper echelon alongside its biggest competitors.

Why this matters: Asics has long been considered one of those “If you know, you know” sneakerhead brands that stayed in its niche. Clearly, now, it’s outgrown that status as a $5 billion brand.

The question isn’t how much further the brand will grow — it’s how much faster. Asics is well on its way to crushing its 2030 sales goal of $6 billion by a few years. Is $10 billion a real possibility here? The brand is still a long way away from that, but it certainly feels plausible.

On the Periphery of ASW

Nike may have stolen the attention for most of All-Star weekend, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t other brands out there putting out good product. Believe it or not, Puma was one of them.

What happened: On the outskirts of the weekend, the brand offered up its newest collaboration with LA-based luxury menswear brand Nahmias, named after designer Doni Nahmias.

• Nahmias collaborated on three pairs of Puma Suede, elevating the classic sneaker.
• The brand took over LA’s Maxfield to showcase its new spring collection and latest Puma collaboration.

The shoes themselves are good. The chunky laces on top of the OG model are what sell it for me. Nahmias’ clean, bright pastel colorways are also a great touch.

Yes, but: What I’m most interested in with this isn’t necessarily the shoes, but rather what they represent. This is one of Puma’s biggest strengths. The brand does elevated luxury collaborations better than almost any other footwear brand in the industry.

My thought: Now that the brand is under the Anta umbrella, I wonder if collaborations like this will continue.

• On one hand, luxury collaborations haven’t been the Anta way from a sportswear perspective.
• On the other, Anta has largely gotten out of the way of the other brands it owns and allowed them to do what makes sense for them. Salomon (under the Amer Sports umbrella) is a great example of that.

I hope we can see Puma continue to cook in a similar way. These luxury collabs are too good to cut out.

Curling’s Sneaker Moment

There isn’t much room for sneakers to get in on the Winter Olympics considering all of the snow and ice everywhere. But one of the niche spaces the category has seemed to find a way to sneak in is Curling.

What’s new: I spotted US Curling star Taylor Anderson-Heide wearing a pair of New Balance 550s this weekend.

• She seems to be wearing a white and blue pair of 550s that you could buy out of the store.
• Her shoes also seem to have some special customisations done to the soles that make them good for curling. She needs that grip to properly brush the ice.

A look back: This isn’t the first time sneakers have snuck into curling. Matt Hamilton wore the “What the P-Rod” Nike SBs four years ago in the 2022 Beijing Olympics (Can you believe that’s four years ago now?!?). Sneakers and curling have a legit relationship at this point.

Let me go get my broom and my 550s. Maybe this is a Winter Olympic sport I’d be decent at?

What’s Droppin’, Bruh?

This is a dedicated section detailing upcoming sneaker releases for the week, and sometimes other interesting drops I think you might care about.

• Nike Air Max 95 “Hong Kong” — Thursday, Feb. 19
• Salehe Bembury x New Balance 992 “Calm Be The Crater” — Thursday, Feb. 19
• Nike Air Max Goadome Low — Friday, Feb. 20
• Pharrell Adidas Jellyfish — Saturday, Feb. 21
• Levi’s x Air Jordan 3 — Saturday, Feb. 21

Thanks for reading, gang!

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, reach out to me via email at michael.sykes@businessoffashion.com or shoot me a message @MikeDSykes via socials.

Peace and love. Be safe, be easy, be kind. We out.

-Sykes 💯

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