You can tell that Kyrie Irving is a big deal for Nike by the way he just got his own logo. After co-signing the HyperRev and Hyperdunk, we’re excited about seeing the next step for the player who just got a high-profile new friend and a few tons of pressure on his shoulders that he might not have had a year ago. But even if you’re not watching Irving’s career closely, you’ll probably have already made up your mind about this duo of Quickstrike AF1s, with their polarising use of transparent panels. That application actually goes back a long time ago to the days when Nike put it on some prototype runners in the very early 1980s for some reason and, more recently, the ESPO AFIIs and Clot AM1s (nobody seems to talk about the Olympic editions of the Trainer Dunk Free hybrid that had the same window paneling too). Force fans will remember some brief panic at Foot Lockers over the Invisible Woman AF1 that bore a resemblance to these, plus 2013’s invisible option. In this dual-shoe celebration of #2 we get a college era homage and a celebration of where Irving is right now — Duke blues and greys and a Cavs colour palette. We prefer the former, because it’s a gloriously contradictory clash of visibility and invisibility with 3M panels and see thru elements. Or maybe it’s the most visible AF1 upper ever…we haven’t worked out the exact intent yet. Anyone who fogged up their Clots knows that this kind of project is better in theory than on the foot, but, as with the Espos and the Nike Rifts back in the day, accompanying socks make all the difference (we stopped short of saying free socks because at the shoe’s RRP, we think that they’re factored into the cost) can reduce embarrassment — plus they’re those fancy Elite socks which are currently causing pandemonium and are incredibly comfy. Not for everyone, and more than a little bit busy, but the Kyrie Irving AF1s are interesting and on sale on Saturday 22nd November.

www.nike.co.uk

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