Nike By You Review: One Of A Kind Sneakers Delivered To You

Despite being around in the UK and the US for almost as long as we remember, Nike By You (NIKEiD) has been a serious latecomer to Australia’s bustling sneaker scene.

Many of us remember spending evenings pushing our computers’ processors to the absolute limit customising Basketball shoes, football boots and runners, dreaming that one day we might get to do it ourselves.

And yet, Nike By You has had the same reception as many global things that eventually filter their way into the Australian market: We like the idea of it from afar, and we’re jealous that everyone else gets to do it, but once we get access to it, we decide it’s probably not worth the extra time or money anyway.

Nonetheless, it’s worth knowing exactly what Nike By You offers and how you can get your very own pair of custom kicks, so here’s the rundown.

What Is Nike By You?

Nike By You is essentially Nike’s clothing and footwear customisation service. It lets you take Nike’s most popular pre-existing bag, footwear and apparel lines, and customise them with colour schemes, names, and in some cases, logos, to fit your exact specifications and tastes.

Want a pair of football boots or ball shoes to go with your team’s kit? No problem. Want a pair of blacked-out runners? Simple.

What Can I Customise?

Nike By You has always been pretty flexible in the range of things you can customise. Since Nike By You’s inception, Football and Basketball shoes have always been the staple.

You can make your own pair of Mercurial, Tiempo, Magista or Hypervenom boots, and if Ball is your thing, you can choose from Kobes, LeBrons, Hyperdunks, KD’s, or Jordan performance shoes. Baseball, tennis and skateboarding shoes are available in abundance, too.

Nike By You also caters for the everyday athlete, offering customisation for runners like the Air Pegasus, Infinity and Flyknit Air Max, as well as training shoes like the Metcon.

Finally, Nike By You attempts to cater for the sneakerheads out there by offering you the chance to create customs of some of Nike’s most classic silhouettes. Models like the Metcon, Air Force 1, Dunks, Sock Dart, Air Presto, and Roshe are all available, as are Nike’s most popular Air Max lines.

Word to the wise though: If you think you’re going to be able to replicate a limited drop and sell it for $500 at the next local swap meet, prepare to be disappointed.

Levels Of Customisation

Quite a few! Nike lets you run riot over pretty much every pair of shoes available on the site, so long as it falls within the set choices of colours, patterns and materials available for each shoe. That being said, the choices are still vast.

For instance, creating an Air Max 90, you get to choose the colour and material of the upper (with some patterned uppers also available), as well as the colour of the mudguard, eyestays, backstay, laces, swoosh, midsole, midsole speckle, midsole wedge, airbag, and outsole.

After that, you can even add text onto the backheel tab (on other shoes, it’s on the tongue or side of the shoe), replacing the Nike Air logo if you so wish. That being said, Nike reserves the right to stop you from putting text on anything that it deems to be inappropriate. No swear words, no racism, no celebrity names, no names of sports teams either (unless they’re sponsored by Nike of course).

Of course, with the fewer elements to a certain shoe, the fewer options you get to truly customise each aspect of it, but it’s still good fun.

The Cost Of Originality

As ever, money and time. No matter which way you look at it, you will pay a premium for a pair of Nike By You shoes.

A pair of Nike Hyperdunks will set you back $200 from Nike’s online store today, whereas some Hyperdunk iDs cost $270. Some stock standard Air Pegasus runners will cost an extra $50-$55 when customised. None of this is factoring the cost or time of shipping, either.

Estimated turnaround is anywhere from a month to 6 weeks.

Nike By You Do’s & Don’ts

With the thousands of potential customisations that you get from Nike By You, come thousands of potential ways to completely screw your most prized pair of kicks.

Mixing the wrong materials and colours can take your creation from unique to downright tacky, so a few wise choices here and there can make all the difference between getting noticed for the wrong reasons, and getting stopped on the street for the right reasons.

Choose timeless colour combinations – refer to websites like Pantone and other colour wheels to see which colours always go with what.

If you feel uncomfortable, stick with monochrome. It never goes out of style

Take inspirations from things you love – you’ll be more inclined to look after them if there’s sentimental value attached..

Choose practical materials – if you’re going to wear them loads, don’t go covering your shoes in patent leather or anything likely to get ruined.

Be loud, but not vulgar – you’re not Jeremy Scott.

Get your name printed on anything that you won’t use in competition – they’re not like a wallet that you can get monogrammed. You’ll just get laughed at when you step into the gym.

Use heaps of materials on the same shoe – Keep it to two maximum, otherwise, they’ll be a nightmare to look after and look a wreck.

Be afraid to let your personality come through – you’re paying for the privilege to make these your own. Use the opp to make something unique and reflective of YOUR style.

Choose silhouettes you’re unsure of – anyone can pull off a pair of Air Max 1’s, but 95s take a distinctive style.

Nike By You definitely hasn’t had the intended effect Nike thought it would have by eventually launching the service down under. Perhaps they should have been forewarned by the abysmal failure that was miAdidas.

In fact, despite covering the sneaker scene for as long as almost anyone, we don’t think we’ve seen a single pair of Nike By You kicks on Australia’s streets.

All the same though, it’s here to stay, so if you have a little extra coin and a little extra flair, make hay while the sun shines.