He Just Left the Swoosh Off

Nigo's Air Force 1 with j-hope is on SNKRS today. The same week, Bape is celebrating 25 years of the Bape Sta, the Air Force 1 his label made in 2001 with a star where the Swoosh goes.

Nike puts the Nigo x j-hope Air Force 1 '01 on SNKRS today, $150, after a five-day head start on Human Made's own webstore. Brown and rust leather, rope laces, a squirrel on the heel and a tongue tag that reads NIGO over the word AIR. The '01 is the shape. When the first Nigo Air Force 1 came out in April, Nike said he had worked with its designers to bring back "the sleeker vintage look of the 2001 Air Force 1."

Nigo knows the 2001 Air Force 1 well. That's the year, by Bape's own count, A Bathing Ape put out the Bape Sta: the same low-top shape, patent leather, and a star where the Swoosh should be. This week Bape is selling a 25th anniversary Sta pack at its US stores.

Nike noticed. Its in-house lawyer and its VP of footwear flew to Japan twice in October 2009 and, according to Bape's own court filing, put a licence agreement on the table. Bape wrote back that it appreciated the trip, that "the license is not something we can rush to agree to," and that Nike should "expressly spell out" what claims it thought it had (Complex has the emails). Nike's version of the same trip, from the lawsuit it filed in January 2023, is that it went over "to address BAPE's pirating of Nike's iconic Air Force 1 design." The case settled in April 2024. Bape dropped the Sta Mid and the Court Sta and agreed to change the Sta itself.

Nigo wasn't there for any of that. He sold 90% of the company to Hong Kong's I.T in 2011, for about $2.8 million, and left in 2013. His own Nike deal started in 2024. At the April launch he said: "I never imagined in my dreams that one day I would be able to express my own style through the Air Force 1."

He had, though. In 2001. He just left the Swoosh off.