Nike suits up NCAA Basketball Teams

After enduring five months of intense competition, today’s elite collegiate basketball players are battle tested. With the style of play evolving each season, Nike is introducing a 360 degree approach complete with new base layer apparel, unique uniforms and customized footwear. This approach meets the evolving needs for players demanding superior performance with a distinct look.

Nike Pro Combat Introduced

As the leader in base layer apparel innovation, Nike will outfit Duke University, Gonzaga University, The University of Memphis, Michigan State University and University of Oregon in customized Nike Pro Combat. Nike Pro Combat is ergonomically designed to provide basketball-specific protective padding without restricting mobility on the court for maximum performance.

“College basketball is a tremendously quick and physical game, and Nike is committed to giving student athletes the best gear for battle,” said Nike Sport Apparel and Innovation Creative Director Todd Van Horne. “Nike Pro Combat reflects the evolution of the game and provides our college teams with quality base layer apparel they need for their tournament runs in March.”

The Nike Pro Combat Deflex short provides padding over the hip and thigh, and the Nike Pro Combat Deflex elbow pad provides superior protection. Both the shorts and sleeve will showcase vibrant team colors for each of the aforementioned schools. Nike is unveiling this special edition Nike Pro Combat visual color scheme that is custom designed for each school beginning for their conference tournament.

Uniforms Evolve in March

For the first time ever, these five schools will also wear distinct Aerographic jerseys during their respective conference tournaments and run for the national championship. Using Nike Aerographic technology, an engineered mesh providing zoned cooling and dramatically reducing the fabric density, the weight of the jersey is reduced by 31 percent compared to current uniforms.

"Our new Aerographic jerseys combine superior fabrics and breakthrough graphics for a look we’re excited to bring to college hoops during the tournament frenzy," said Eric Lautenbach, Nike, Inc. Director of College Basketball.

The Aerographic jerseys debuted on the USA Senior National Team during the 2008 Olympic Games. An exclusively designed "We the People" graphic, inspired by USA's rich history, was showcased on the back of the jersey.

The five NCAA team jerseys are designed to reflect the unique identity of each university. These design patterns allow more ventilation in the burn-out mesh application.

Duke University: With gothic architectural inspiration, this design was inspired by the Duke Chapel, a major campus icon that speaks to the heritage of the university. It also includes a rendition of the original Duke crest. Duke will be wearing this jersey in conference tournament action.

Gonzaga University: The spiked collar of Gonzaga’s bulldog mascot inspired the circular spiked design while the school’s commitment to rise to the occasion led to a symbol of prosperity running vertically at the top. “Go Zags” is the design’s centerpiece.

The University of Memphis: Dynamic tiger stripes representing the boldness of the mascot inspire this jersey design. The team’s “refuse to lose” quote is abbreviated and included at the center of this design.

Michigan State University: Spartan battle armor inspired the dynamic pattern running throughout this jersey while the Michigan State logo forms the foundation. An ancient Greek shield design surrounds the Michigan State logo.

University of Oregon: Grid pattern detail throughout represents the trusses in the roof on U of O’s Mac Court while the beams of the roof run vertically. The iconic Oregon “O” is the design’s centerpiece.

Custom Designed Hyperdunks Unveiled

To bring the look full circle, each of these five teams went from the backboard to the drawing board by joining NIKEiD for one-of-a-kind shoe design sessions. The student athletes worked closely with NIKEiD designers to create a look that captures the essence of their program.

The Nike Hyperdunk has ushered in a new era of superior, lightweight design. Featuring Flywire, a performance architecture that uses thin and very strong nylon fibers to support the foot, the Hyperdunk is a favorite shoe among Nike’s college teams.

This NIKEiD design sessions marked the first time Nike allowed collegiate teams total control over customizing their own team basketball shoes. The design potential was extensive, and players showcased their creativity and team identity. Fans of each school can replicate their team’s design beginning March 10 at NIKEiD.com.

Cole Haan to Launch New Sports Clothing Collection With Maria Sharapova

Cole Haan, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NIKE, Inc., announced Maria Sharapova as a lead collaborator and the face of Cole Haan Sporting, a new sports clothing collection for Spring 2009, rooted in sport and remixed with fashion.

Cole Haan Sporting stakes out fresh territory with a new, dynamic pairing of Cole Haan's authentic craftsmanship and Nike's sports innovation. The collection introduces new technologies like Flywire which build on the successful Nike Air franchise by recasting them into fashion-forward designs.

The Spring 2009 global launch of Cole Haan Sporting includes men's and women's footwear and accessories, and features international tennis champion Maria Sharapova. This lifestyle fashion collection will encompass day to evening silhouettes in both the footwear and accessories categories.

"Maria Sharapova embodies the blend of fashion and sport that makes Cole Haan Sporting unique," said Cole Haan Chief Executive Officer James Seuss. "We created this collection as the foundation to a dynamic lifestyle - weaving Cole Haan's history of craftsmanship with Nike's tradition of high-performance innovation."

Maria Sharapova, 21, is a triple Grand Slam winner who has a longstanding passion for style. She will step into the role of collaborator for the Fall 2009 season.

"Cole Haan Sporting proves that fashion and technology can work together to change the way women think about and wear sport-inspired product," said Sharapova. "I look forward to working with Cole Haan to bring new innovations to this leading fashion brand with such a rich history."

For Spring 2009, Cole Haan Sporting will embody sport style with a collection inspired by nautical, court, track, and golf. The women's footwear collection includes elevated wedges, chic flats and sleek sandals. Signature men's styles include the brand's iconic boat shoe and edgy lace-ups in bold color palettes paired with classic neutrals.

This new sports clothing collection will continue to showcase Nike Air, an innovation that has enabled Cole Haan to redefine luxurious style and comfort. Outside, the styles are pure Cole Haan, luxurious and fashion-forward; inside, they share Nike's innovative technology that debuted in Beijing.

The accessory collection encompasses a range of silhouettes from a tennis racquet bag to a versatile duffle. Continuing to weave style with innovation, the accessories will be created from recycled plastic bottles and will be trimmed in vegetable chrome-free leather. Cole Haan Sporting will be sold at Cole Haan boutiques worldwide, luxury department stores and on colehaan.com. Price points range from $115 to $200 (footwear) and $225 to $550 (accessories).

Serena and Sharapova US Open Clothing Collection by Nike

The US Open attracts a large number of tennis lovers every year to the heart of Queens NY. Whether it be homegrown New Yorkers or Hollywood’s finest…everyone falls victim to the lavish green court of the US Open. Nike athletes Maria Sharapova & Serena Williams have developed new fresh looks for this years U.S. Open. Sharapova’s "Day & Night" dresses feature key materials that we chosen for moisture management, comfort, and strength. The Sharapova U.S. Night Dress is made up of two layers, which feature a sleek & yet body forming lightweight jersey. Leaving the outer layer, permanently pleated and features a Dri-FIT premium lightweight jersey, allowing the dress to be fluid with controlled movement. Taking cues from the red carpet and the runway, Maria’s color palette for the night dress is black adorned with gold accents.

As for the Sharapova U.S. Day Dress, it provides world-class support with a bodice fitted top, black stretch velvet waist details, sheer conchord fabric overlay in the skirt to add depth and movement, and a black seamless short, letting female tennis athletes elevate their game without sacrificing freedom of movement or fashion. The Sharapova U.S. Day Dress is currently available for $95 and the U.S. Night Dress is also available for $110.

Sharapova Day Dress

Sharapova Night Dress

As for my girl Serena Williams, her ensembles during the US Open are always a topic for discussion in my camp. Seeing as though Serena is a "show stopper" in every sense of the word her U.S. Open Collection is nothing to play games with! Especially the Serena Court Day Dress which is currently available for around $100, features the same Dri-Fit material and is perfect for any athlete.

Serena Day Dress

All of these are available at Nikestore.com

Asafa Powell Debuts Leading-Edge Nike Zoom Aerofly

Nike’s deep focus on innovation for the Beijing includes work with one of the world’s fastest human beings – sprinter Asafa Powell. In his bid to reclaim dominance in the 100 meters, Powell today debuted the sleek and aerodynamically efficient Zoom Aerofly when he steps into the blocks in August.

The Zoom Aerofly is one of Nike’s most technologically advanced and lightest weight track and field offerings ever, designed to lock down the foot, grip the track, and provide advanced aerodynamic properties to shave valuable time off the clock.

Working closely with Powell and his style of running, Nike has incorporated leading-edge footwear innovation. Instead of more traditional stitched fabric panels, the upper’s super-strong, super-lightweight composition employs Nike’s revolutionary Flywire technology. Flywire emboldens the construction with 65 super-strong criss-crossed threads, or synthetic tendons, per shoe, woven from Vectran liquid-crystal polymer threads (a lightweight polymer. Like the cables on a suspension bridge, this construction method works to resist stretching, helping maintain lateral stiffness and locking in the heel and forefoot without adding extra weight. The heel-forefoot lockdown is further aided by Nike’s new lightweight lobe-technology collar, to help fill the area between the heel bone and ankle bone, helping avoid shoe slippage.

The Zoom Aerofly spike’s high-density glass-reinforced nylon spike plate, the same one Powell’s been wearing in his last two highly successful world-record seasons, provides a supremely strong and stable ride and amazing lightweight power transfer. The full-length plate is anatomically configured to work with the natural shape of the foot, keeping it in optimal sprint position. The eight-stud design allows for spike-length customization to accommodate any track and condition.

Weighing in at 186 grams (a normal track spike is in the 245-gram range), the wind-tunnel-tested Zoom Aerofly fits like a second skin. With Powell’s roughly 70 mph foot swing-through, the Zoom Aerofly helps reduce drag, in a sport where success is measured in hundredths of a second. In these shoes, says Nike’s Sean McDowell, “It looks like we spray-painted his feet.”

Powell’s Zoom Aerofly goes a step beyond the aerodynamic shroud, to also help tell the sprinter’s personal story. The upper offers a finish that emulates the spots on a cheetah – one of the world’s fastest sprinters – rendered in a fading Jamaican flag-esque white-to-yellow-to-green. This ultra-lightweight upper draws a further graphic distinction, converting some 10 spots into meaningful iconography for Powell. “We had many interviews with Asafa over the last few years as he prepares for the Games,” said Nike’s Sean McDowell. “These give him a little boost of inspiration as he steps up to the line.”

Spots include the image of the island of Jamaica, a speeding bullet, the likeness of one of his reggae music stars, a bass guitar (which Powell plays), a powerful and personally important biblical verse (Philippians 4:13), a fast car, the names of his deceased brothers Vaun and Michael, the “MVP” ensignia for his track club, and an image of the globe.

One of the world’s fastest men channels one of the world’s fastest creatures. Asafa Powell in the Nike Zoom Aerofly – it is destiny just waiting for the starter’s gun.

Highlights
• Nike’s most technologically advanced and lightest weight track and field offerings ever
• Super-strong, super-lightweight composition employs Nike’s revolutionary Flywire technology, using criss-crossed threads, or synthetic tendons woven from Vectran liquid-crystal polymer threads.
• Supremely lightweight at 186 grams)
• High-density glass-reinforced nylon spike plate provides a supremely strong and stable ride and lightweight power transfer
• Inspirational iconography

USA’s Olympics Sports Clothing by Nike

As the world prepares for the challenge of the Olympics, players are for sure ready to compete and show their long and painful hard work. Working and training hard is one of the key in reaching their target, but for Nike, a well formed athlete will be performing in an edge level when geared with their latest technology in sports clothing.

Aerographics

At Nike, less is always more, and that principle led to the creation of Aerographics, an engineered mesh that can remove up to half the yarn in a garment. Typically, adding a mesh panel to a shirt means sewing in mesh and adding seams that can bunch and chafe.

Instead, Aerographics allows designers to incorporate mesh directly into a garment without any extra materials. In fact, this new technique cuts weight by reducing the amount of material, while adding comfort and passive cooling to the garment itself. With Aerographics, athletes will be cooler just by dint of wearing the garment—no small matter given the heat and humidity in Beijing in August.

Aerographics uses a unique process to remove unnecessary fibers wherever you want only mesh on a garment. But, what makes Aerographics truly special is that, for the first time Nike can make a garment cooler while adding fully functional, country specific graphics designs. This unique process opens up a new door to create functional graphics relevant and unique to each Federation.

This technology will embrace the body of the athlete of the USA team especially in basketball and track and field division.

Flywire

In addition to Team USA’s uniform design, Kobe Bryant of the basketball team will be wearing the new USA Nike Hyperdunk colorway. The Nike Hyperdunk is 18 percent lighter than the average Nike basketball shoe and is the lightest and strongest basketball shoe Nike has ever created.

Imagine a paper-thin shoe, no more than two microns thick, whose only support comes from threads. This is Flywire. A revolutionary technology, its high-strength threads work like cables on a suspension bridge with support engineered precisely where a foot needs it. Flywire allowed Nike to make its lightest and strongest footwear ever, transforming how footwear is engineered by reducing the amount of material required for the upper of a shoe to the bare minimum. Thanks to this innovation, track spikes with Flywire are now under 100g – a weight never before achieved – without compromising on durability or integrity and support.

Such a precise placement of the Flywire filaments means the uppers are more like a second skin. The fabric is only there to keep out rocks and dirt. The threads provide all the support, and the new footwear provides a solution to what had been an unsolvable problem—slippage.

Walk or run in a shoe and with each step your foot slips. Your foot pulls back maybe just a millimeter, but over the course of a race those millimeters add up. Assuming a meter stride, over 1000 meters, could potentially equal a whole meter savings at the finish line—no small amount when the difference between first and third place is less than that.

New Sports Clothing for Oregon State University

For the season 2008, Oregon State University will be wearing a new football uniform. It will be a flash back to the history and heritage of the school as Nike, the sponsor of this sports clothing, hook up a traditional football jersey design.

This jersey will be available for the fans starting on August 28 before the first game at Stanford and can be ordered in advance through the new game-day and online apparel store for Oregon State Athletics

Though classic with its design, this clothing will still use the latest technology used by Nike.

Innovative fit - the new jersey has an updated design and incorporates new performance fabrics producing a tight shrink-wrapped fit. This minimizes grab points.

Weight reduction - both the jersey and pants are significantly lighter weight. Players are carrying less weight throughout the course of a game.

Improved moisture management - both jerseys and pants are produced with fabrics that hold far less moisture, thus carrying less weight.

Increased ventilation - light weight mesh is added in areas traditionally covered by non-breathable fabrics. In the upper back neck and under arms where heat can escape (areas not covered by thick plastic & foam shoulder pads).

Nike PreCool Vest – Sports Body Heatsink

To keep athletes cool at the world's biggest sporting event Nike has unveiled the PreCool Vest. Developed specially for the Bejing Olympics the vest has multiple triangular cavities of various sizes and inside there is frozen water. This vest is recommended to be used about an hour before the athlete competes. It should be use for the normal warm-up of the player, remove then compete thus cooling your skin and lowering your body temperature and making the athlete last 21% longer. The vest is made with two different materials, the first acts as a thermos, preventing the cold from escaping and the second helps to keep the body cool.

Nike Wildwood 90 Free Trail

Presenting the latest shoes by Nike – the Nike Wildwood 90 Free Trails. This uses a metallic snakeskin-like material and fresh white colored body thus sports to a shiny, comfy and clean clothing look to your foot.

It may come equipped with the ACG logo, but it appears to be ready to be taken out for a walk on the moon instead. Nevertheless, it’s hard to hate something so shiny and bright, whether it is a hybrid model or not.

These will be available soon at Nike retailers.