A First Look at Nike's Gear for the Tokyo Olympics

The 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro ended on August 21 of that year; in September, a chunk of Nike’s design team was in Japan, meeting with the Tokyo Olympic Committee to see where its members’ collective heads were.A couple of things became clear very quickly. Except the ridges in these cords serve two functions: creating a baffling effect that moves air along the skin underneath the fabric, and giving the fabric a two-tone, almost lenticular appearance that can look like it’s flickering when the athlete is in motion.The apparel for soccer (or “global football,” as Nike calls it) doesn’t quite flicker, but it’s still eye-catching. (That said, Nike claims that since 2008, its Air soles all contain at least 50 percent recycled materials, and that more than 90 percent of the waste created in the making of said soles gets reused.)That’s not to say that all the sneakers announced today are solely about athletics. (They also look like mashed-up homages to other popular Nike silhouettes, a genetic stew that’ll doubtless inspire sneaker sites to do their best 23andMe impressions.)Oddly enough, the Nike Olympic apparel that looks to best balance the Tokyo committee’s concerns of heat management and sustainability happens to be for a sport that’s making its Olympic debut this summer: skateboarding. “So [the design process] is basically just running through samples and figuring out what works: Where we need certain materials, where we need things to be a little thicker, and then getting the product to a place where we feel light and comfortable.” That light and comfortable end result, designed in conjunction with Dutch artist (and one-time pro skater in his own right) Parra, also happens to be 100 percent recycled polyester.How this all plays out in the Games, of course, remains to be seen.