The rumors are true: Tom Sachs and Nike are over. Highsnobiety can confirm that Tom Sachs and Nike's partnership has ended as of May 2023.
The troubles began mere weeks after the release of Nike and Sachs' latest General Purpose Shoe (GPS), the popular line of utilitarian sneaker that Nike and Sachs began issuing in 2022
First, there was an anonymous job listing for an "art world family" that was so awful that it quickly went viral. The source was never confirmed but it was widely speculated to have been posted by Tom Sachs and wife Sarah Hoover.
A month later, a more direct report explored alleged abuse within Sachs' studio.
Therein, reporters cited former Sachs employees as having personally experienced emotional, verbal, and physical abuse while working for Sachs.
Highsnobiety reached out to Sachs' studio regarding the status of his Nike partnership on May 9. A third-party representative provided Highsnobiety with an internal email titled "To My Studio Team" that Sachs sent to his staff nine days after the publication of the article alleging abuse.
On May 10, Sachs published the email as an open letter.
"I’ve said things I regret. I haven’t always evolved as quickly as I’d liked," Sachs said in the document. "There are times I have not met even my own internal standards and times when I have let you, my team members, down. I am many things—an artist, a welder, and a builder—being a manager is something I’ve tried to learn along the way.
"But let me be clear: I have never tried to make anyone feel uncomfortable. I have never harassed anyone. I would never intentionally harm anyone. Safety is a top priority in the studio. Those are the facts."
When reached by Highsnobiety, Nike did not cite the allegations as the reason that it ceased working with Tom Sachs.
Instead, Nike representatives simply provided a brief statement: "We are not working with Tom’s studio at this time and have no release dates planned."
Tom Sachs' rep declined to comment further about the artist's current relationship with Nike.
Interestingly, to us at least, Nike's statement uses vague enough language to leave the door open for a potential reunion with Sachs down the road.
There were several iterations of Sachs' NikeCraft GPS sneaker seemingly set to release later in 2023 before the scandal broke, so those shoes are currently in limbo.
Tom Sachs and Nike's professional relationship goes quite a ways back — former Nike CEO and art collector Mark Parker and Sachs are so close that the artist interviewed Parker for a 2009 magazine feature — but formally began with the release of 2012's Nike Mars Yard sneaker, a cult smash that was so limited that vintage pairs still resell for thousands of dollars.
Infrequent Tom Sachs and Nike team-ups continued, as the pair partnered on IRL activations and the occasional sneaker drop but the General Purpose Shoe was different.
Launched in 2022, the General Purpose Shoe (GPS) was to be the most impressive expression of the NikeCraft project — Sachs' dedicated Nike sub-label — to date, an ultra-wearable shoe intended to be released en masse over time and eventually become a unassuming daily staple à la adidas YEEZY.
The first few GPS sneaker colorways flew off digital shelves, prompting occasional restocks as new iterations trickled out through to early 2023.
“The GPS is democratic, designed for daily use. We developed a shoe with a clean silhouette. A universal uniform shoe that somehow feels familiar,” Sachs told Highsnobiety in mid-2022 as GPS hype ramped up.
Musing about the state of sneakerdom, Sachs said, "It’s not about what you do, but how you do it.”
This article was published on May 9, 2023, and updated on May 10 to reflect that Sachs' email was published as an open letter.
