The 25 Best Sneaker Boxes

2009

For the 20th anniversary of the Reebok Pump in 2009, 20 global retailers were given the chance to put their own spin on the Paul Litchfield-designed classic. And while everyone did their thing, few took on the project with the same verve as Boston’s Bodega. Their “Outback” version of the Pump was packaged in stenciled military-spec ammo boxes complete with camouflage netting, assuring that their concept was more than just shoe-deep.

2001

DC were early on collaborative footwear projects. In 2001, they started with their Double Label campaign, the beginning stages regularly lost in the annals of history. What followed were more triumphant artist projects with the folks at Arkitip and big names like KAWS and Shepard Fairey. These suffer from poor silhouettes, but should not be forgotten - they really were pioneering.

DC connected with Metalheadz on a version of the Manteca which, in fairness, falls flat as a sneaker. Adding a logo to a sneaker heel is primary school level branding, yet the effort gets bonus points for a custom box featuring dnb legend Goldie's label logo in full glory.

2006

Originally released in 1983, and remade in 2006, the adicolor LO was presented in a wooden painters box complete with brushes, paint and sealant. It is a literal concept, privileging an owners creativity and the impulse to personalize shoes. The clean presentation has merit, for sure.

Early 1990s

If you’re going to leave a huge international company like adidas to start your own sneaker line, you’d damn well better make your stuff recognizable. Patrick Ewing did exactly that with his eponymous brand, plastering his signature on the shoes and his name all over the box, including a de-logoed photo of himself in his familiar No. 33 jersey. Say what you want about the ill-fated venture now, but back then you knew full well what you were getting.

2008

Over the years, Undftd's been no stranger to collaborative sneaker projects. The LA-based retailer does certain things right — hitting all the key notes of the given model's history and adding some contemporary quirks with an undeniable sense of individual style. In 2008, Undftd was given charge of celebrating the iconic adidas Top 10. While the gold accents might not be to everyone's taste, the shoe itself played second fiddle to a larger campaign highlighting the legacy of adidas basketball. Packaged in a special leather box, the shoe came with a photography book, "1979," compiled by the legendary Estevan Oriol. Projects that hit on the emotion of sport are good, and this in particular stands as one of the best.

2007

Back in 2007, nobody gave much of a toss about "Made in the USA." Yeah, we know, New Balance is on it now in 2011… but, don't forget their homage to the factory worker began several years earlier. Props are due, of course, to NB UK who have regularly highlighted the Flimby factory, even honoring key employees with the biographical "Flimby Heroes" collection of 2006 (the best of the brand's centennial celebrations) and giving nods to the region in the Lake District pack this year.

The Super Team Collection, set up to highlight the brand's best workers and craftsmen, kicked off with a trio of 1400s inspired by fish and produced in the Skowhegan, Maine factory (the best known of six New Balance factories in America). The boxes, featuring clear sidewalls, maximized the fish concept — produced to look like fish tanks — and serve as reminder of when ideas are pushed beyond footwear to a thorough and complete package.

2009

A companion to the release of Coraline, a film version of the horror novella by Neil Gailman, the Coraline dunk was produced as a limited edition prize giveaway. There are several versions, some direct for seeding, and these are reflected by unique packaging. Some folks got a wooden box. Others a carnival big top inspired number, complete with cotton candy, and there was also a lunch box variety.

High points given for creativity, the Coraline dunk was a project of Weiden + Kennedy (along with artist Gian Galang) and even managed to incorporate real film props.

2007

The theme for the Air Jordan XX2 was “stealth.” Inspiration was drawn from the F-22 — at the time the most advanced fighter jet in the world — and the box followed the shape of the plane's hangar. Michael Jordan accepted the theme to the extent that he started answering to “Stealth” himself.

2001

Inspired by the then-new Audi TT, adidas THE KOBE represented an entirely new direction for adidas. As such, the high-tech model was presented in equally high-zoot packaging — a drawer that slid out of an opaque plastic box. Remove the shoes, and you’d find Kobe smiling up at you, which was either amazing or disconcerting. In lieu of the usual tissue paper, the shoes were wrapped in clear plastic, which allowed you to get a peek of the color before you even opened the box.

2003

After the Jordan XVII set the standard for ostentatious packaging of a general release basketball shoe, expectations were high for the release of the XVIII. Simplification in packaging didn't mean downgrading concept. While materials weren't as lofty (no metal, just cardboard), the XVIII featured one of Beaverton's first drawer style boxes. We're more likely to remember the similar boxes used for 2008's Air Force 1 HTM release, but let's again give credit to originators over hype.

2009 and 2005 respectively

Sure, adidas was late to a party Bape had already crashed. But, given the subject matter we've got to tip our hats to collections that hit the nail on the head both times. If you're doing shoes inspired by toys, you can't go wrong employing a box based on traditional toy packaging. The adi pack is shown here.

1971

Okay, it's the sticker rather than the box. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's adidas involvement was something that the brand was keen to capitalize on. If you've ever had the opportunity to dig through any of those increasingly endangered old-world sports store stockrooms or were fortunate enough to browse upstairs at San Fran's 3-stripe temple, Harputs, the Jabbar, Abdul-Jabbar and Skyhook boxes stood out among the glorious stacks of blue. Between the declarations of made in West Germany, made in Hungary or made in France, Kareem's face would periodically appear, smiling among the clinical, Teutonic iconics. Then we'd be crestfallen on opening a box that still had pristine leather and suede on the uppers, but a tongue that had inexplicably turned into a sticky, cracked mess during thirty years of stockroom slumber. Damn those chemical compounds. Don't sleep on the jumping Jabbar imagery either that sometimes replaced the face, preempting the Jumpman by a few years. This imagery still looks amazing, and shouts to Foot Patrol for putting then-store manager Wes on the box for their adidas Campus release in 2007, turning an anonymous adidas shoe into something a little different.

2007

Commemorating the Simpsons Movie, Vans commissioned 12 artists for a collaborative package of 14 total shoes. In true Simpsons form, each artist was given the Matt Groening treatment becoming fully functioning characters in the story. The boxes, all the same except for the artist image, were instant classics.

2002

The most expensive Air Jordan of all time at a cool $200, the Air Jordan XVII was presented in a metal briefcase that should have come with a pair of handcuffs. Instead, it arrived with a CD of videos and imagery giving some of the backstory to the jazz-inspired (no Utah) shoe. The metal box had been seen earlier in 2001 with the release of a series of Japan exclusive Air Jordan 1 retros, but this was a first (and, as it turned out, last) for a mass-marketed shoe.

2003

In 2003, queuing for shoes seemed like a novel thing to do and BAPE was still maintaining that street-level Hermes, neo-Warhol feel. Superstars were looking a little tired too. Salutes to Nigo and adidas for going all out with the "Respect is Mutual" theme. They made the Superstar look beautiful again with that off-white toe and proved that the Superskate was a lost masterpiece. The Superstar's exploded shoe point-of-sale displays remain unsurpassed and the vacuum-packed tees were tremendous. Hangtags completed the no-expense nature of the shoe that justified the expense and ludicrous waits. The boxes followed that attention-to-detail, custom designed and built especially for the collection, with camo stripes and that diagonal stripe ape head making it a clean merger of Nigo and Adi's dual visions, and the perfect vessel for these sought after Superstars. The Bape adidas pieces weren't some project that you'd stumble across weeks after release or find in a sale — the price reflected the work that went into them, but they created a precedent that hasn't been topped when it comes to collaborative sneakers. In comparison, the follow-up looks like a straight-to-DVD sequel without the original stars involved.

2006

When Nike collaborated with MC Yan and Clot in 2006, the East-meets-West theme balanced innovation with cultural tradition. On Nike's end, the spirit of technological evolution played out against an honoring of Chinese medicine. While the shoe — with ostrich skin and snake details providing accent to a runner with transparent vamp — is visually striking, the story is sold most proficiently through the packaging. Drawing inspiration from ancient medical texts, the box opens up in archival fashion with a Chinese seal stamped in contemporary graffiti lettering on the cover.

2005

You don’t hire an artist like Pushead — whose disturbing skeletal artwork has appeared on everything from skateboards to Metallica t-shirts — and expect him to only work on the shoe. Nike SB utilized Pushead’s insole print on the lid of the box, marking the first time an SB box was as displayable as the shoes within.

1995

The Air Max 95 is an undisputed sneaker head favorite. The box too is killer. Not quite a direct interpretation of the gray gradation on the original colorway of the shoe, but close enough to foreshadow what is within. Plus, the typography is just straight up stellar.

2011

Two things about this AF1 are awesome. First, let's have a quick look at the shoe… who doesn't love a bit of terry cloth? Second, and most importantly, the packaging of the hyperstrike version. In a stroke of genius, Nike built a box modeled after a candy wrapper. To be exact, it's modeled after the wrappers employed by White Rabbit Creamy Candy, a sugary treat launched in 1943 and produced in Shanghai. At once you get terrific cultural and pop cultural connection, and a collectable worthy of the mantle piece (even after you've finished beating the shoes… which is what we all do with AF1s, right?).

1992

Most shoes look awesome in miniature — especially the more technical pieces. Did a baby or toddler need the benefits of the Huarache's contour footbed? Of course not, yet Nike opted to make performance runners in micro sizes. And whereas the grown-up Huarache arrived in a box with its own identifiers and stark-looking color scheme, Nike's children's range came packaged in the polar opposite, with the lid featuring a vividly illustrated, curiously old-fashioned, faintly nightmarish-looking illustration with baby faces on tennis balls and even a dumbbell that pre-dated 'Teletubbies' by over half a decade, assisted by speckles and an appropriately baby shade of blue. There's probably scope for a top 50 baby and toddler sneaker boxes if it wasn't such an inexplicably creepy prospect. Now we get a takedown of the "real" packaging. It's not as bizarre, brilliant and at odds with the menacing, futurist aesthetic of the time as this box.

2007

New Balance collaborations are dropping all over the place, but in late 2006, the Crooked Tongues team were looking to package their UK-made 'Confederacy of Villainy' pack celebrating some well-known villains (and rewriting history for the purposes of colorway convenience), and wanted something beyond the neutral beige of the contemporary box (alas, the black/red and white/light blue days were over). To encase the special makeups of the 1500, 577, 575 and 991, each shoe got its own box with the fine fonts and art skill of tattooist and Crooked crew member Mr. BJ Betts applied. That slide-out case encased the shoes in their standard packaging. With four boxes (and custom tongue tags instead of basic branding) for a release that barely topped 150 pairs of each colorway in terms of numbers, each UK-made like the shoes themselves, the packaging alone cost around $30 a piece. That made this quadrilogy of standard-setters an underrated, truly unprofitable release, and with masses of new jacks hopping aboard the New Balance hype train, you probably missed out on one of the greatest 1500s ever and a 577 that still blows minds. The UK overstands how to do a New Balance correctly.

2009

Lightning, apparently, can strike twice. Boston retailer Concepts has released two versions of the famed Lobster dunk — the first in 2008 and the second in 2009. Both had terrific hyperstrike packages, both worthy of this list, but we're giving the nod to the second iteration.

The shoes were tagged, bagged, and stashed in a HAZMAT foam container. While the 'Concepts Fishing Company' idea of the original (which included a condiment box) was cool, this just has graphic punch for days.

1987

When the original Nike Air Jordan released in 1985, it was a bit of a thrown-together project. Relying primarily on color to pop — and pop it did — the hand-me-down aspect extended to the box, which was simply the regular orange and white Nike box redone in black and red. For the Air Jordan II, following on the breathtaking success of the original, this simply wouldn’t do. The Italian-made, Swooshless shoe arrived on American shores in an equally elegant one-piece black and white box that featured the ball and wings logo as a central element.

2006

The best sneaker art project of all-time? Yes, probably.

ARI, a partner with ESPO on "On the Go" magazine, created the shoe to mark the 10 year anniversary of moving from Philly to New York. It's a satirical package, commenting on the ubiquity of the AF1 and the Newport cigarette box in the urban environment and the corporations that take without ever giving back.

The story was reinforced by a tremendous package design - an oversized menthol box complete with silver paper.

(And, yes we remember ESPO's super AF2s, the second best sneaker art project of all-time).

1990

The Air Pressure isn't a very good shoe. Imbeciles and ironists will "lol" their way to campaigning their way to a relaunch, but there's a reason most never owned this weak sneaker. The color palette was excellent (recently revived on a colorway of the PR1), but it got trounced by Reebok, who dropped their shoe at the end of the previous year. Even Nike conceded that pump was a flawed concept. It even ruined perfect examples of early '90s ugly like David Robinson's Air Command Force . Even though Audio Two's 'I Don't Care' album was very good, it bricked, and the Pressures on the cover were to blame. Keep a pair stashed and that ridiculous valve-aided collar will crack like some cheap prop. An expensive folly that's fondly remembered, the Air Pressure would have been better without the pump application that drowns out the rest of Bruce Kilgore's design. So why do people like it? Beyond that colorway, the Tupperware-style plastic box kept the shoe safe, has a section in the lid to clip in the separate pump and even a shoulder strap. It demanded reuse in an era where the box was binned or used as photo/porn/comic storage. It almost justified the Pressure's deranged price tag. You see, there's something inexplicably appealing about Nike Tupperware.