When Olivia Kim was at New York clubs in the ’90s, she saw some Nikes that she’s still seeing today. Nordstrom’s vice president of creative projects grew up on Palladium and Twilo during that pivotal style decade, and she developed a taste for mixing Air Maxes and Air Force 1s with baby doll tops and ultra-wide JNCO jeans. On Thursday, she and Nike will announce that they’ve turned that long-standing affection into the Nike x Olivia Kim No Cover Collection.
In an interview in September, Kim described her ’90s life in terms of local haunts and clothes. “I was just a little rugrat kid,” she said. “I would hang out in Washington Square Park, and go shopping at Canal Jean Company. I would eat at McDonald’s, and I would go to Urban Outfitters because at that time Urban Outfitters was so cool.”
Before arriving at Nordstrom in 2013, Kim was vice president of creative at the determinedly eclectic Opening Ceremony for a decade. The national, corporate role is a larger canvas for her to do the same kind of work, rendering her interests and travels shoppable across levels of idiosyncrasy. At Nordstrom, she’s brought in young and emerging brands like Marine Serre and Jacquemus, and partnered with Hermès and Chanel on in-store installations.
“I wore Air Max 90s a lot,” Kim said of the days when her sense of style was first emerging. “I would graffiti the soles or do glow-in-the-dark paint on them. I would switch out my laces to make them a little bit more funky.” In other cases, she’d have platforms added to her sneakers.
Kim took her new collection to some similarly collagist places with images of Betty Boop, slicks of glitter, and fluorescent tones. The accompanying campaign outfits Binx Walton in zebra-striped Air Footscapes; Megan Rapinoe in corduroy-and-snakeskin Air Force 1s; John Waters in reimagined Black Cat Jordan IVs; and Kim herself in Air Mowabbs made for both running and hiking and accented in teal and red. From a distance, those Jordans are the subtlest of the sneakers, but close-up, their pony hair texture emerges.
“The Jordan IV is one of my favorite all-time shoes,” Kim said. “The first pair of Jordan IVs I bought, I had to buy at Fulton Mall in kids’ sizes,” she added, referring to the outdoor Brooklyn shopping center.
The idea, she said, was to recreate “some of the classic silhouettes, but with a little bit more of a fashion twist. That was also part of that DIY ’90s club kid culture. I said from the onset, if Mary J. Blige wore a sneaker, it would be this Jordan IV.”
But in indiscriminate doses, nostalgia can grow stale, and Kim aimed to balance fidelity to her past against a willingness to look forward. “Some of those experiences” in her ’90s club days, she said, “are very, very specific.” She wanted the collection "to feel wearable today.”
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