Nike Dunk High 'Coraline'
Colorway: Barley/Barley-Khaki-Dark Loden · Style code: 373349-771 · Release date: January 15, 2009 · Price: $3894 · Availability: Available now
The connection between the studio and the shoe is ownership. Laika is owned by Phil Knight, who co-founded Nike, and its first full-length film opened in early February 2009: a stop-motion feature written and directed by Henry Selick, animated with puppets whose interchangeable faces could produce something over 208,000 expressions.
The film's defining image is a person whose eyes are buttons, and the shoe reproduces it literally. Black buttons sit on the tongue and at the eyelets. The upper is two-tone grey canvas with the seams left visible and stitched by hand in black thread, echoing the handmade quality Selick wanted kept in the puppets themselves. The outsole glows in the dark.
Distribution matched the subject. A hundred pairs were made and none were sold: a code hidden in the film's closing credits unlocked a shoebox on the promotional website, and only people who caught it could claim a pair. A Dunk High is an unusually plain object to hang all of that on, which is most of why it works.