The 2025 Nike will be a déjà-vu

Between 2014 and 2015, Nike, trying to ride the wave of success of its three main football models - Mercurial Superfly, Magista, and Hypervenom - attempted to turn these silhouettes into lifestyle models, by hybridizing their uppers with some midsoles that were widely appreciated by Swoosh fans in the following years. One example is the Free 3.0. It was a very experimental project, not only for the aesthetics - certainly never seen before at that time - but also because it represented a true fusion between the best performance technologies and those characterizing the brand's lifestyle lines at the time. In fact, the uppers of these sneakers, which were born and quickly launched to market, not only had an extremely high retail price, much closer to that of football boots than sneakers, but they also maintained all the features of the performance version. For example, the Nike Free Hypervenom II featured Flywire technology, consisting of precisely arranged filaments on the upper to reduce weight and provide proper foot support.

Of course, it cannot be denied that the commitment to development and marketing was central to the decision to turn these performance shoes into lifestyle products. The first model that started to get attention was, back in June 2014, the Nike Free Mercurial HTM, a collaboration between Mark Parker, Nike's CEO and designer, Hiroshi Fujiwara of Fragment, and Tinker Hatfield. Then came the Air Footscape Magista, which combined the Footscape midsole with the Flyknit upper, already featured in the Air Magista boot.

Ten year later

In short, the idea of bringing football-related silhouettes into everyday outfits was the mission ten years ago, but it’s also what Nike plans to revisit with the re-issue of the Total 90 III, now confirmed for March. So, a significant difference compared to what happened in 2024, when Nike took the opposite approach: a clear example of this is the Nike Mercurial TN, which brought the Nike TN upper into the football world. This is an increasingly evident example of how the long-standing relationship between design and sport is expanding, a phenomenon also picked up by other brands. For example, who would have ever expected to see the branding of Aimé Leon Dore on a New Balance boot?

The first hint of this new "reinfluence" of football in lifestyle by Nike came even before the first leak of the Total 90 III’s release this spring. In March 2024, Nike launched the Nike Air Max Plus Tiempo, hybridizing the upper and midsole of a Nike TN with the iconic lace cover tongue of the 1994 Nike Tiempo. This experiment (rightly called that) should have made us understand early on the brand's plans for 2025. But more importantly, it suggests that we need to take a closer look at the target audience Nike will engage with in 2025, and why this market operation of bringing performance footwear and lifestyle together could be more successful than in 2015. When Free Mercurial HTM, Air Footscape Magista, and Free Hypervenom debuted, the footwear market was totally different from today’s: after debuting in the football world, sock-like silhouettes also reached the fashion world, but under the dominance of adidas, which launched the Tubular Doom PK and especially revived the Qasa High under the Y-3 sub-label, during a golden moment following the success of Yeezy and models like Ultraboost.

New market, new target

In fact, at a historical moment when “comfortable” sneakers were gaining the upper hand – there was no sign of low-tops, and Nike was experiencing one of its hype peaks in the running shoes sector with models like the Flyknit Racer, Chukka, and Free Run 2.0. The era of Roshe Run had just ended, and the re-issue of a shoe based on the silhouette of a Mexican sandal, like the Huarache, brought a breath of fresh air. However, it wasn’t the best timing for Nike to dive into the football world, especially in terms of telling its story and developing new lines, since the audience wasn’t yet ready for a collaboration that would unfold soon after, but with a completely different language: that of Gosha Rubchinskiy and Demna Gvasalia, with a distinctly more street and traditional aesthetic, rich in cultural meaning. All of this happened with a great stage in front of them: the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Moreover, even though Nike has often balanced its footwear offer between re-issues of past silhouettes and more futuristic models, the lifestyle versions of the Magista, Hypervenom, and Mercurial simply weren’t understood, especially due to their complex aesthetics. It’s no coincidence that they were mostly spotted in Japanese street styles, often paired with full utility looks by Acronym.

Now Nike is ready to bring back the Nike Total 90 III, repeating, like a déjà-vu, what it did in 2025. But, learning from its mistakes, it is doing so by bringing back a silhouette that is not at all divisive (the Total 90 is a no-hating shoe), one that already has a history in lifestyle, both with indoor and artificial grass soles, but especially at a time when low-tops like PUMA Speedcat, Samba, Spezial, and adidas Gazelle have stolen the scene in the footwear world.