Why have two when you can add one more?

Is it possible that when there are more names to a collaboration, the end product would sell better? We might fear the too-many-cooks situation, but brands, especially those seriously trending, are not. In the case of Nike, Fragment Design, and Sacai, three in collaborative mode is the magic number. But how would the extra-name hype increase sales when these collaborative outputs would still be sold in ridiculously limited quantities and priced beyond the reach of the average sneaker lover? We don’t know. As sneaker collabs go, this two-easts-meet-one-west team-up is destined to make big what is already a major hit: the LDWaffle. This time, it is still unmistakably Sacai: double the Swoosh, heel counter, and tongue, and the more obvious the heel wedge, to better let fellow MRT commuters to step on it. But what makes this round of collaboration more desirable is the addition of the third name, spelled out noticeably on the heel wedge. After Fragment Designs, look out for Clot and Undercover, as we have been recently told, courtesy of Edison Chen’s teaser post on Instagram.

Sacai is, of course, the brand name on everyone’s lips these days. No sneaker designer Chitose Abe touches, it appears, does not turn to gold. At least with Nike, that has been the case, starting from the Nike Blazer Mid of 2019. Ms Abe’s former boss Junya Watanabe has, of course, been a long-time Nike collaborator, going back to his debut of the Nike Zoom Haven in 1999 (our favourite is the low-key Super Fly from 2001). At the launch of the Blazer Mid, not many sneakerheads thought Sacai could go as far as Junya Watanabe, but the former did. When the LDWaffle (hybrid of Waffle Daybreak and LDV) appeared in 2020, the sneaker space went berserk. About a year later, the staggering Vaporwaffle, with its gaping heel, sealed the deal and Sacai’s reputation as the collaborator that can produce extreme sneakers that sell was cemented.

That Fragment Design is in the triumvirate is not surprising. Hiroshi Fujiwara’s work with Nike goes back even further: to 2002 when the other threesome—Mr Fujiwara, Tinker Hatfield and Mark Parker (both from Nike) formed HTM (from the initials of their first names) and, later, HTM2, the project that would, hitherto, produce grail-level sneakers. Sneakerheads never get enough of his output, including those under the Air Jordan imprint. Nike’s global director of influencer marketing and collaborations, Fraser Cooke, once said to the media that Mr Fujiwara “has remained relevant for so long because he has good taste and a very acute sense of timing—he’s good at partnering with the right people at the right time.” And that he is a prolific collaborator helps too. The founder of Fragment Design’s other presently-trending collaboration is with Travis Scott, also in partnership with Nike—Air Jordan 1.

For this iteration of the LDWaffle involving Fragment Design, Mr Fujiwara picked a navy, later named Blackened Blue, as the shade of the mesh and suede upper. There’s something almost old-school about the kicks in this colour, a chromatic hush that Nike called “understated”. The heel wedge in white, acting like an underscore, comes with the branding of all three, with Nike’s known simply as ”the classic” (the double Swooches enough to take the place of a single four-letter name?). On the second (bottom) layer of the two tongues, Fragment Design’s logo of the double thunder bolt within a circle is immediately discernible. To fans, this is possibly the most important inclusion above all else. Read, even now, sold out!

LDWaffle x Sacai x Fragment Blackened Blue, SGD249, will be available on the Nike e-store on 24 August 2021, 10am. Product photos: Nike