Virgil Abloh, the man with a near-impossible number of strings to his bow, took to Instagram last night to announce his latest project: “QUEEN” to Off-White’s 4.4 million followers.
The post, which features Off-White’s signature text overlaid on
a Nike Swoosh, reads: "Virgil Abloh for Serena Williams 'QUEEN'", and is, quite simply, captioned with the tennis ball emoji in quotation marks.
Cryptic? Not enough to outsmart the legions of Abloh fans, who live for the thrill of unannounced street and sportswear drops such as these. The fact that the NikeCourt account, which is dedicated to tennis performance wear, had been tagged was quickly identified, as well as the date of the post. The Off-White x Nike x Serena Williams announcement hit feeds two weeks before the beginning of the US Open on August 27 – just enough time for the hype to reach fever pitch for Williams’s court-side debut of the product.
Abloh has a comprehensive knowledge of Nike’s archive, after he reimagined 10 trainers from the core brand, and Nike-owned brands Converse and Jordan, in 2017. At the time, the designer said of “The Ten” project: “It’s larger than design culture. These 10 shoes have broken barriers in performance and style. To me, they are on the same level as a sculpture of David or the Mona.”
Williams’s relationship with the sportswear giant goes back 15 years. In 2003, Nike signed the then 22-year-old tennis champion to an endorsement deal that made her one of the world's highest-paid female athletes. The contract simultaneously bolstered the brand's presence in the women’s sportswear market and Williams’s personal brand away off the court. The “QUEEN” trainer style is the latest step in this mutually-beneficial journey.
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