Nike will be releasing two different "What The" Kyrie 2s next week, but the design is very different than former "What The" colorways in that neither pair features a dizzying display of clashing colors.
Instead, Nike is offering a different take on the classic "What The" theme with two monochromatic colorways. To make the release even more unique, the "Sail" colorway will only be available in North America, while the "Green Glow" joint will be exclusive to the rest of the world.
Both will reportedly retail for $120 on December 12th.
Nike Basketball Design Director Leo Chang explained the creative process that went into Kyrie Irving's first "What The" signature.
“Our conversations around this shoe were to bring the unexpected in the execution because we’ve already done the “What The” theme several times on other models,” explained Nike Basketball Design Director Leo Chang. “Customizers are doing it where they just paint up their own “What The” versions. So we started to think about how we could create something only Nike could do.”
“For this one, we thought about it more in a monotone, sculptural, dimensional execution with very minimal color pops,” explained Chang.
Designer Meline Khachatourian adds:
“I had to familiarize myself with what Kyrie has gone through and how it has been shown through all of his footwear and through the artwork,” she shared. “It wasn't about trying to be flashy by having multiple colors all over the shoe, it was more about the subtlety of integrating Kyrie's stories through unique 3-D textural graphics carefully molded on both shoes.”
“There’s a graphic on the strap of the Inferno colorway, it’s an image of Kyrie doing a crossover. We thought why don’t we take where the ball would be in the image and turn that into the “Kyrache” logo and bring that back in,” Khachatourian further explained.
“For his first championship, we have one gold ring (on the upper eyelet). We wanted to keep it unique so we did just one gold ring.” Khachatourian adds.
So the "What The" Kyrie 2 isn't at all what we had expected but the story behind it is still pretty dope nonetheless. Check out the full description of the upcoming kicks right here.