Key Points
- Releases June 16 via Nike SNKRS for $200 (style code IM3886-100).
- Built on Nike's 1999 Zoom M9 football trainer.
- White/University Red-Black with oversized "AIR" branding.
- Honors Mia Hamm; part of Nike's X2 World Cup collection.
Virgil Abloh died in 2021; his Nike work did not. The Virgil Abloh Archive — V.A.A., the entity now stewarding his unreleased designs — has resurfaced one of those projects as the Cryoshot Zoom M9, releasing June 16 on Nike SNKRS for $200 after staggered early launches through the Archive and Dover Street Market.
What it is
The shoe rebuilds Nike's Zoom M9, a 1999 football trainer, into a lifestyle sneaker. The colorway is White/University Red-Black (style code IM3886-100), finished with the oversized "AIR" graphics that became Abloh's shorthand at Nike. It carries explicit "MIA HAMM" branding — a nod to Hamm's 1999 Women's World Cup win, the same year the original M9 appeared — and arrives alongside a matching V.A.A. apparel capsule within Nike's X2 World Cup collection.
Why the archive matters
Abloh's Nike output — "The Ten," the Off-White deconstructions — reset how the industry treats collaboration, turning a designer's hand into the product itself. A posthumous archive release is a delicate thing: it can read as tribute or as inventory. This one leans tribute, pairing a women's-soccer landmark with a 1990s silhouette most buyers never knew existed. It is also a reminder of how much unreleased Abloh material Nike still holds, and how deliberately it is being metered out.
The timing
The drop lands in the middle of a World Cup footwear surge, with the tournament on home soil pulling every major brand toward the pitch — adidas built tournament product around an F1-adapted CLIMACOOL system, and Nike is routing its biggest archival names through the same moment. For collectors, a $200 Abloh-designed Nike with a finite SNKRS release and a World Cup peg is the kind of pair that moves on resale before most buyers see it at retail.
Source: Sneaker Bar Detroit, SNKRDUNK
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