The Best Sneaker Collaborations of 2016

2016 was one of the strangest years in modern memory, and the same can be said about sneaker collaborations over the past 12 months. What made 2016 different wasn't that anything crazy or newsworthy happened in the world of kicks, but rather the complete opposite: It was an unusually lukewarm year for collaborative footwear.

Still, there were a few notable moments that stood out above the rest, and they gave hope for the future of such sneaker projects. Typically, these collaborations comprise sneaker boutiques and footwear brands take on beloved shoes from the late '80s and early '90s, but that changed a bit this year. Adidas launched a handful of collaborations via performance sneakers and brand-new models, while Nike revisited silhouettes from the early 2000s, as well as some of its tried-and-true favorites. This created a mix where sneaker enthusiasts were able to diversify their closets and get interested in sneakers they previously hadn't considered, which is never a bad thing. 2016 also saw streetwear brands like A Bathing Ape and Supreme get involved with shoes that had a big impact with hypebeasts, resellers, and collectors. Everyone won, even if this year's pickings were slim. To keep things level, we also left off brand partnerships like marquee artists like Kanye West and Pharrell Williams for Adidas off this list. Here's how the rest of the collaborative efforts matched up. 

Adidas planned a big Consortium World Tour this year, where top-tier sneaker boutiques were given the chance to work on a different sneaker and make it their own. To kick off the journey, Nice Kicks launched its own pair of the NMD to coincide with the opening of a new retail store in San Francisco. The sneakers were trippy, coming with a tie-dye print, and they were unlike any other iteration of the NMD this year. They really don’t even look like an NMD, and maybe that’s a good thing with so many colorways of the shoe on the market. It’s one of the few NMDs that truly sticks out this year, even if it’s a “love it or hate it” type of sneaker. Some, however, really like the design, and they’re paying near $1,000 to get their hands on them. —Matt Welty

The Air Force 1 wasn’t supposed to be a big story in 2016, but Nike had special plans for the sneaker at this year’s inaugural ComplexCon. One of the projects was a very limited version of the sneaker designed by A$AP Bari’s streetwear brand, VLONE. The shoes had a premium upper with orange accents, and one pair was going for $90,000 on eBay. Nike and Bari were a perfect match: The collaboration brought a bit of energy to a sneaker that lost its buzz, with help from a young, upcoming artist from Harlem, the neighborhood that made the Air Force an icon. It was a win-win situation, and it just so happens that it looked stellar, too. If the Air Force 1 pops off in 2017 for its 35th anniversary, this collab could be seen as the catalyst. —Matt Welty

Kith’s Ronnie Fieg dropped a lot of collaborations this year, and most of them were really, really good. So it’s hard to single out which one of his shoes stood out the most in 2016. While his work with Adidas and ASICS was more than appreciated, it was one of his left-field projects that caught our eye. Fieg has long been known for taking sneakers and making them more premium, and he did just that with the A Bathing Ape Bapesta. The sneakers were handmade in Portugal and came with a buttery suede upper. There was nothing groundbreaking in their design, but they came together so smoothly. No one was looking for Bapestas this year, but Fieg made everyone want a pair. On top of that, YMBAPE, a Supreme-hating man who terrorized hypebeasts in SoHo, was finally arrested outside of the release for these shoes. You can’t make this stuff up. —Matt Welty

The Adidas Ultra Boost is the definition of a cozy sneaker. It’s nice and comfortable, it has a slip-on design, and the Primeknit upper is stretchy. The only thing that could improve all of these factors was a collaboration with Canadian sweatpant connoisseurs Reigning Champ. The sneakers weren’t out of this world in terms of their design, but it was a partnership that made sense for both parties. They were able to come together and make the product better, which is what collaborations should be about at their core. There was also an apparel collection that accompanied the sneakers, as well as a pair of Pure Boost X for women. Like many popular sneakers these days, fights broke out for these coveted kicks, with a ruckus going down at Concepts in New York City. That didn’t hinder anyone’s opinion of the Reigning Champ x Ultra Boosts, though—unfortunately, it only added to the allure. —Matt Welty

While the Air Jordan III gets credit as the first “modern” Air Jordan, many of its innovations—the Swoosh-less upper, the use of exotic materials—were pioneered on the Air Jordan II. Unfortunately, the II has long been one of the least appreciated sneakers in the Jordan line, especially among the ones Jordan wore as a member of the Chicago Bulls. So it made sense that another  Chicago powerhouse was the one who to finally give the II the shine it always so richly deserved. Enter Don C., aka Just Don, whose leather-clad strapbacks made the thought of a $400 baseball cap seem not so outlandish. His take on the II—monochrome, lux materials—began with last year’s royal iteration and was topped by this year’s tan “Beach” take. The package came with a hat too, of course, but the sneakers stood on their own. For those of us who knew, they always have. —Russ Bengtson

The Nike Air Presto was originally designed as an exercise in simplicity: What if a running shoe was sized like a T-shirt? The stretchy upper supported by a minimal TPU cage allowed for a literal interpretation of this, with the initial run of Prestos in 2000 made in sizes XXS through XXL. The Acronym Presto designed by Errolson Hugh (who, in addition to Acronym, helped relaunch Nike ACG) went in the opposite direction: What if you took the simplest shoe and made it complicated? This shouldn’t have worked. Needless to say, as evidenced by its place on this list, it did.

The Acronym Presto was made in T-shirt sizing, still carrying over most elements of its simplistic predecessor. Then it added on, with a higher cut, zippers and straps, extra reinforcement on the toebox to balance out the suddenly busy heel area. The result was something like a Visvim from the future, a cozy-boy moccasin-like shoe without the problematic appropriation of Native American culture—at a decidedly more consumer-friendly pricepoint than anything Hiroki Nakamura has ever put out. The Acronym Presto didn’t evoke the same love/hate feelings as last year’s Acronym Air Force 1 project, which jarringly ran a zipper down the middle of a Nike classic. Instead, it presented as a new school remix of a seemingly un-remixable design, like a DJ Premier flip of a Coltrane track. Whether in the understated Bamboo colorway or the wild pink and green neon, the Acronym Presto immediately became every bit as necessary as the understated original did back in 2000. Now it’s hard to imagine being without either. —Russ Bengtson