heres An OG article from The NY Times in relation to the NyC IV launch. What a time this was.
The shoes, at $250 a pair, nearly sold out. “The only ones we’ve got left are some Size 16s — that’s LeBron’s size,” a young salesclerk who identified himself by one name, Pro, said yesterday. The Zoom LeBron IV NYC is a lot like the Zoom LeBron IV, a high-tech, futuristic-looking sneaker that Nike has introduced for the 2006-7 basketball season, except that the lower part of the shoe is decorated with graffiti-like markings.
It looks like what an astronaut might wear to go skiing.
Jeff Lyman, a Nike executive whose business card describes him as the company’s “associate brand manager, LeBron James U.S. brand marketing,” said more than 100 people had camped outside the store the night before the opening.
One man in the store yesterday buying two vinyl LeBron figurines, Roscoe Gibson, 25, had earlier bought a pair of the sneakers. “I’ve got about a hundred pair, which I’d say isn’t nearly enough to make me a sneaker fanatic,” he said. “Believe it or not, I might actually wear these.”
Mr. Lyman said: “LeBron wore them for the game. It’s a very New York look, but it’s still very LeBron.”
The pop-up store was also offering a new line of LeBron T-shirts, LeBron iPod covers, LeBron spiral-bound notebooks, and another hard-to-find shoe (4,500 pairs worldwide, mostly in Asia), the red and white Zoom LeBron IV China Edition. Also, at $45 each, the figurines of the four characters LeBron plays in Nike’s television ads: Wise LeBron (very old school), Business LeBron (LeBron, as if played by Iceberg Slim), Kid LeBron, (“joyful exuberance,” according to a Nike press release), and Athletic LeBron (LeBron as himself).
Pro, the salesclerk, cautioned a customer against trying to move the arms and legs of Athletic LeBron as one might do with an action figure’s. “There’s no articulation,” he said. “It’s more of an artistic piece.”
A brass trophy case beside the cashier’s desk housed a couple of items that were being auctioned on eBay: an “embellished aluminum mold outlining the iconic Zoom LeBron IV shoe,” as a plaque described it, and an engraved wood case of LeBron poker chips and playing cards. “He and his boys love to play a game called bourré,” Mr. Lyman explained. “LeBron has always loved cards because he’s such a people person. It’s just kind of a fun way to use product to celebrate what LeBron is all about: It’s a classic ‘LeBron is just like me’ thing.”
A display case in the middle of the floor held a pair of sneakers that were not actually for sale, the Zoom LeBron IV Family Size Edition, which were all white, save for a layer of multicolored flecks encasing the midsole. These were size 16s, and were suspended inside a plexiglass tube, beneath a two-foot-tall pile of Fruity Pebbles cereal.
“Because this is the Fruity Pebbles version of his shoe,” Mr. Lyman said. “He loves Fruity Pebbles. At this point, this is only a one-pair edition. Maybe we’ll do a small run of them eventually. It’s not exactly the most sightly shoe.”
