An image from the Nike: Form Follows Motion exhibition
Nikeina by Beatrice Brandini
The exhibition “Nike: Form Follows Motion” (from 21 September 2024 to 4 May 2025, at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany) takes us on a wonderful journey through five decades of the evolution of the Nike brand. It is a story told through the lens of design and movement, illustrating how attention to the needs of athletes has led to some of the most revolutionary innovations in sport and style.
From the Nike: Form Follows Motion exhibition, sneaker – 1972 and sketches of uniform
The exhibition at the Vitra Museum, as explained by director Mateo Kries himself, explores an immense treasure trove featuring a design archive that has never been presented to the public. Through products that we know, combined with others with a revolutionary design that remained only, or in part, in the design phase, we can admire objects that testify to the innovation and creativity of this brand, whose logo (swoosh) has become an icon known throughout the world.
From the exhibition Nike: Form Follows Motion , study of the logo – 1972
The exhibition is divided into four chronological sections. The first Track focuses on the formative years that laid the foundations of the brand. In this part you can admire the story of the invention of the waffle sole in Bill Bowerman’s kitchen and the related promotion of the products during athletics competitions.
From the exhibition Nike: Form Follows Motion , adv 1978
In the second, Air, everything revolves around the development of the technology of the initially invisible insole, which became transparent Nike Air Max, effectively consigning the Nike brand to history and popular culture.
From the exhibition Nike: Form Follows Motion , sneaker – 2016 and 202
Sensation is the part that highlights how anatomy and science work together to create products with increasingly technological performance for athletes; in fact, it always starts from a careful examination of the body in motion, confirming how fundamental scientific research is for Nike.
From the exhibition Nike : Form Follows Motion, Comme des Garçon sneakers – 2021
Finally, there is a section that explores Nike’s collaborations with designers (the most important one with the unforgettable Virgil Abloh) or athletes, who became icons with Nike, effectively positioning the brand as one of the most famous brands in the world, desired, loved and copied, capable of being the basis of movements in pop and street culture, with its sneakers that have fifty years of history and that are, looking at the archives, more current than ever.
Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman, founders of Nike
Long live the American dream, Long live Nike and its incredible story, capable of revolutionizing customs worldwide.
Good life to everyone!
Beatrice