The Nike BETRUE Air Max 270 will be the most limited release of of the silhouette’s short but popular history. | Photo: Nike
Launching in time for Pride month in the US, sportswear giant Nike has revealed its latest Pride range.
The BETRUE 2018 collection’ celebrates colors and symbols that have been reclaimed and historically repurposed by the LGBTQ community’.
Since 2012, Nike has release a special collection as a nod to the LGBTI community.
Nike decided to feature the color lavender and the Pink Triangle symbol in the latest collection.
German Nazis originally used the Pink Triangle to identify LGBTI people during World War II to send to concentration camps. But then activists reclaimed it in the 1970s. Even the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) used it in the 1980s-era ‘Silence=Death’ campaign.
Nike used innovative technology in its BETRUE 2018 collection to include the rainbow colors on some of the sneakers.
‘The airbags are individually dyed in the six-color spectrum,’ the company said in a statement.
‘For the Air Max 270, the spectrum spans the entire heel for a surge of color. Even the Zoom Fly SP, a lifestyle take on a racing shoe, carries a muted rainbow colorway through the shoe’s translucent upper.’
The Nike BETRUE Vapormax Plus features the rainbow color spectrum underfoot. | Photo: Nike
BETRUE to history
Nike also decided to feature the color lavender in its Pride range because it is ‘a dynamic blending of gender-linked light blue and light pink, is one of the oldest symbolic references in LGBTQ culture’.
Lavender appears in the four colorways of this year’s shoe cohort: the Nike Vapormax Plus, the Nike Air Max 270, the Nike Zoom Fly and the Nike Epic React Flyknit.
‘The color’s historical connotations preceded the rainbow symbol’s widespread popularity in the 1970s, appearing on garments as a kind of quiet language among the community,’ Nike said.
The collection, which also includes T-shirts, socks, a hat and a heritage hip pack, launches on June 6.
