Nike Dunk High 'Dubai'
Colorway: Black/White-Gold Leaf · Style code: 393427-071 · Price: $1821 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Nike Dunk Jewel Employee 'In House' (393427-991)
Some of the rarest Dunks were never sold at all. This one was produced as a prize: Nike ran an internal competition in Dubai and handed the winning team, drawn from its Austrian, German and Swiss operations, a Dunk High made only for that group. Numbers were tiny, and pairs surface now almost entirely through collectors rather than through any retail history. The design does not hold back. Black leather is laser-etched across the upper and set against crisp white panels, with turquoise contrast stitching and a distressed gold Swoosh: a combination that reads as a trophy rather than as a colourway, which is exactly what it was. Laser etching had appeared on Nike models before, but rarely alongside a metallic treatment on the same shoe. Underneath sits the 1985 basketball silhouette drawn by Peter Moore's team, a low-cost college shoe that has spent the four decades since being handed out to shops, artists and, occasionally, employees.