Solomon Dims the Lights on His Trophy Case, and the Gold Only Gets Louder

The Air Force 1 that started life in white and gold at NBA All Star Weekend is back on Nike’s SNKRS launch page in black, and the change in backdrop is the whole point.

Pebbled leather meets smooth leather meets textile paneling, all of it rendered in black, and none of it competing with the hardware. That is the pitch behind the Nike Air Force 1 Low built with Los Angeles artist Victor Solomon, officially listed on Nike’s own SNKRS launch page under style code IR2076-001. A raised, dimensional gold Swoosh sits opposite a set of chain style laces finished with matching gold lace locks, a detail meant to read less like a shoelace and more like jewelry draped across the tongue.

The Victor Solomon x Nike Air Force 1 pairs a premium black leather construction with jewelry-inspired details, including metallic gold chain laces, polished gold Swooshes, and custom.

Flip the shoe over to the heel and Solomon’s own signature is stitched into the back tab, a signoff carried over from the artist’s original run with the silhouette. Nike’s product copy leans into the theatrics of it, describing the shoe as a gritty black canvas built so the gold accents get the spotlight. It is a small shift from the debut colorway, but it changes the shoe’s temperament, trading a clean white for something closer to a trophy pulled from a dim case.

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None of this exists without February. Solomon’s original “Trophies” project debuted on February 13, 2026, during NBA All Star Weekend in Los Angeles, with a pop up at Shoe Palace on Melrose Avenue that doubled as a community art space, complete with basketball themed customization workshops. That first run covered three silhouettes tied to different corners of the city: the Air Force 1 as “Sunset Strip,” the Air Max 90 as “Downtown Diamond District,” and the Air Foamposite One as “Westside Beaches,” each limited to roughly 1,000 pairs and built around a white, black, and gold palette meant to evoke an actual trophy finish.

The black version now surfacing is being read as the second chapter of that same idea, stripping out the white base entirely and letting the gold hardware carry the whole story. The Air Max 90 companion piece, style code IR2074-002, follows the same formula with a rhinestone Swoosh and gold rope laces in place of the Air Force 1’s chain lacing, and a black Air Foamposite One is widely expected to round out the trio, mirroring the original three shoe lineup.

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Solomon’s path to a Nike collaboration runs through stained glass, not sneakers. He apprenticed under glass artists in San Francisco before posting a photo of a hand built stained glass backboard to Instagram in 2015 under the hashtag literally balling, a post that turned into a full art practice and eventually a body of work he now calls Literally Balling. The project reimagines basketball’s everyday objects (hoops, backboards, nets) in glass, crystal, and precious metal, and it has found buyers among current and former NBA players.

Artist Victor Solomon is known for transforming basketball into sculptural art, blending haute materials with the sport’s visual language. His distinctive courtside-inspired aesthetic extends beyond gallery installations, informing collective projects that merge craftsmanship, design, and contemporary culture.

The Nike collaboration is not Solomon’s first brush with league hardware either. In 2022, the NBA brought him on to redesign its full suite of All Star Weekend trophies and awards, the first update to those pieces in 35 years, a project that included a dedicated Kobe Bryant tribute trophy. That same instinct, treating an award as a story rather than a shape, is what carried over into “Trophies.” The chain laces, the raised gold logos, the engraved signature on the heel: all of it borrows the vocabulary of an actual trophy case and applies it to a shoe people are meant to wear, not just display.

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Coverage around the black Air Force 1’s release window has not fully lined up. Multiple retail and release calendar sources point to a July 22, 2026 date through SNKRS and select Nike retailers at $250, with the shoe reportedly appearing first as a limited Friends and Family exclusive tied to a Shoe Palace raffle in Las Vegas before any wider rollout. Other coverage frames the black colorway as timed instead to WNBA All Star Weekend, with the WNBA All Star Game itself set for July 25 at Chicago’s United Center, and describes the release as likely limited to select Chicago area retailers rather than a full SNKRS drop. One additional report lists a $150 price point rather than $250. Nike’s own SNKRS launch page confirms the style code, the design story, and the shoe’s return, but does not itself list a firm public release date or price, so neither figure should be treated as fully settled until Nike’s storefront reflects it directly.

The Victor Solomon x Nike Air Force 1 extends its opul treatment to the heel with embroidered gold signature branding on black suede tabs, complementing the premium leather upper and metallic accents. Together, the refined materials and jewelry-inspired finishes give the classic silhouette a distinctly collectible character.

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Style code, colorway, and design description are drawn directly from Nike’s own SNKRS launch page. Background on the February debut and original pricing comes from release calendar coverage at the time. Release timing and price for this black version conflict across available coverage (July 22 at $250 through SNKRS versus a WNBA All Star Weekend window at $150), a conflict flagged here rather than resolved by assumption. Standing sourcing rules mean sneaker news outlets that reported this release are not named in body copy; the gap is flagged generically instead. Biographical detail on Solomon comes from artist interviews conducted independently of this release. Product images were retrieved through image search; the artist portrait slot stays a bracketed placeholder since Solomon is a named public figure.

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