From Nike to Vans to Moschino: how SpongeBob SquarePants became a fashion collaboration sensation
- Nike and NBA star Kyrie Irving teamed up with the cartoon star to celebrate SpongeBob’s 20th anniversary
- The Nike Kyrie x SpongeBob SquarePants Collection is the latest in a long list of fashion collaborations involving the children’s TV series
Kyrie Irving is a strapping 6’3” (190cm) champion American basketball player who has an affinity with sneakers, so much so that what he wears at games is almost as compelling as how he plays.
He is also, surprisingly, an avowed fan of SpongeBob SquarePants, the enduring cartoon about the underwater characters who live at Bikini Bottom; he is able to recite lines from episodes verbatim. So having an Irving-designed sneaker collection predicated on the life and times of SpongeBob SquarePants and his motley crew seemed almost a given.
“Kyrie is a huge SpongeBob fan, knows all his favourite episodes, and he’s been talking about doing something together for a while,” says Jose Castro, senior vice-president, soft lines and global collaborations at Viacom Nickelodeon Consumer Products, which is the division in charge of all things SpongeBob.
“It’s going to be one of our biggest collaborations, and being so secretive about it has been part of the building of the buzz. It’s pretty deep in the SpongeBob world.”
The collaboration, named the Nike Kyrie x SpongeBob SquarePants Collection, was unveiled on July 20, with a projected August 10 availability worldwide.