Nike: Form Follows Motion
Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein
September 21, 2024 – May 04, 2025

With “Nike: Form Follows Motion“, the Vitra Design Museum will present the first ever museum exhibition about Nike, the world’s most revered sports brand. The exhibition will explore the company’s five-decade ascent from a grassroots start-up to a global phenomenon. The focus is on Nike’s design history: from the company’s beginnings in the 1960s and the design of its famous “swoosh” logo, to iconic products such as Air Max and Flyknit, and current research devoted to future materials and sustainability.

Following the Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games in Paris as well as the European Football Championship in Germany, the exhibition will emphasise the importance of sports for design innovation and social change, while also shedding light on the almost mythical devotion to sneakers and sportswear in popular culture and social media. The exhibition has been initiated and produced by the Vitra Design Museum and curated by Glenn Adamson. 

Nike, named after the Greek goddess of victory, has become the world’s leading sports brand since its incorporation in 1972. Today, it is also the world’s largest apparel company, with an annual revenue of more than $50 billion. But Nike is not only a successful company; it is a whole design culture. The proof can be seen almost no matter where you go: a dynamic display of innovative materials, performance features, and high-impact graphics. At the company’s headquarters, just outside Portland, Oregon, products are developed through a unique blend of scientific study, sports research, and aesthetic sensibility. Hundreds of designers there collaborate with specialists in other fields, from material engineering to biology to body mechanics – and, of course, with many of the world’s best athletes.  

Now, for the first time, the exhibition “Nike: Form Follows Motion” offers a look behind the scenes of this unique design laboratory while also examining Nike’s involvement with technological innovation and social change. Most of the exhibits are sourced from the Department of Nike Archives (DNA), the company’s own archive, which comprises more than 200,000 items. The exhibition is the first to present a curated selection from this archive to the public. Among the exhibits are rarities and one-offs, including experimental prototypes of iconic sneaker models like the Waffle trainer, the Air Force One, and Shox, as well as original design studies for shoes and apparel.

The exhibition is structured in four chronological sections. The first, “Track“, delves into the Nike archive’s earliest holdings. The company was founded by two men: Phil Knight, who had been a runner in college, and his former coach Bill Bowerman. Their early employees – and most of their customers – were mainly serious amateurs and collegiate runners, with a few professionals helping to promote the brand. Marketing was hands-on, with sales representatives taking shoes to track meets. In this formative period, Nike established one of its key design principles: always listen to the voice of the athlete.

The second exhibition chapter, “Air“, looks at the 1980s, when Nike achieved take-off. Through endorsements with star athletes like Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, and LeBron James, the company established itself as a prime mover in popular culture. At the same time, Nike transcended its origins in track and field, expanding first into basketball, then tennis, global football, skateboarding, and other sports. Its designs became fixtures of pop culture, thanks to a crafty understanding of the street-style landscape.

The third space in the show, “Sensation“, explains some of the research and development behind Nike’s designs. Here, visitors get an insight into the heart of the Nike Sport Research Lab, one of the world’s largest and most advanced facilities for the study of the body in motion. Since the 1990s, this technical research has increasingly focused on the advancing athletic potential, leading to products like the Nike Free, which simulates the feel of barefoot running, and the Vaporfly, developed as part of an effort to break the two-hour barrier in the marathon.

The culmination of the exhibition, in Room 4, reflects on Nike’s collaborations with external designers, athletes, and its own public. The gallery is a showcase for fifty examples of intriguing and sometimes outrageous footwear from Nike’s history, some developed through collaborations with fashion designers and creatives, others within community-based projects.

more. www.design-museum