No Nike Needed: The Next Big Jacquemus Sneaker Is Too Good to Be a Collab
Jacquemus is so crucial to Nike's current cultural strategy that the French luxury label offered one of the Swoosh's sole outings are the recent Paris Fashion Week shows. But, at the same time, Jacquemus proved that it's so much more than a mere Nike partner, as if there was any doubt.
At the Jacquemus Spring/Summer 2025 fashion show, collaborations with Apple and Nike casually emerged as part of a collection so crisp that the latter low-top sneaker, a slick riff on Nike's Moon Shoe, all but blended in with Jacquemus' own offerings.
The Nike shoe was the big reveal, as far as sneaker-obsessed folks were concerned, but it was hardly the main footwear event.
Instead, Jacquemus showed a new in-line shoe for SS25, the Tennis sneaker. It quietly released along with a host of other new-season fare on Jacquemus' website in the wake of the show with relatively little fanfare.
Unlike its accompanying $1,850 dresses and $750 pants, though, Jacquemus' Tennis sneaker sold out instantly.
The shoe released in a trifecta of colorways that highlighted its featherweight construction — $490 for uppers of thin suede, $550 for see-through mesh and tulle — and barely-there sole, a mirror image of Jacquemus' collaborative Nike Moon Shoe.
All of them are currently listed as "sold out" online, with a note allowing users to join a restock waitlist.
Speaking of, Jacquemus usually sells through its Nike sneakers with the quickness whereas its in-line shoes tend to sit. Compare the sold-out Tennis to the AIr Max-adjacent Jacquemus sneaker still available in a full size run
Why does the Tennis have the secret sauce and not Jacquemus' prior footwear dabblings?
Chalk it up to the current state of designer sneakers, which designates that slim shoes are king and conventional kicks are passé. Jacquemus' footwear designer ssimply tapped into something zeitgeisty with this new shoe and is being abundantly rewarded, no Nike needed.
