Nike Daybreak Type 'Laser Orange'
Colorway: Laser Orange/Summit White/Vast Grey/College Grey · Style code: CJ1156-800 · Release date: July 16, 2020 · Price: $61 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Nike Daybreak-Type 'Anthracite Menta' (CJ1156-001) · Nike Daybreak Type 'Purple Mantra Orange' (CJ1156-002) · Nike Daybreak-Type 'Black White' (CJ1156-003) · Nike Daybreak-Type 'Light Bone Orange' (CJ1156-004) · Nike Daybreak-Type 'Light Orewood Brown' (CJ1156-100)
Bill Bowerman's waffle sole came out of a domestic kitchen: in 1971 he poured rubber into his wife's waffle iron to see whether a grid would grip a track better than the studs then available. The Waffle Trainer followed in 1974, and the pattern has sat under Nike running shoes ever since. The Daybreak, from 1979, is one of the models that carried it.
The Daybreak Type does not restore that shoe. It came out under N. 354, the experimental banner Nike used for designs allowed to look unfinished, and the work is subtractive: layers that would normally be closed off are left semi-transparent, so the orange mesh shows what is behind it, and grey suede overlays sit on top without pretending to be structural.
The branding follows the same logic: handwritten rather than printed, with the Swoosh stitched in a matching tone so it registers as texture instead of as a logo. A white foam midsole and the waffle outsole finish it off, and those are the only two parts inherited more or less unchanged from 1979. It released in July 2020 at $90.