Nike Dunk Low Indigo Haze

Two ways to wear it. Soft: grey or stone wide trousers, a white tee and a light knit, so the violet reads as a neutral with a mood rather than as a colour. Sharper: black denim, a black tee and a cream or ecru jacket, where the muted purple becomes the only tone in the outfit. Indigo Haze sits well against grey and cream and badly against warm browns. Dunks fit true. This is a dry weather pair. Watch for denim dye on the toe box, clean marks the day they happen, and store away from direct sunlight, since pale violets shift and fade faster than most colours in the range.

In India, Nike has been a difficult brand to buy well. It entered in 1995 through a licensing agreement with Sierra Industrial Enterprises, now SSIPL, later set up Nike India Pvt Ltd, and spent years priced roughly 30 percent above competitors, reporting no net profit from 2006 until the financial year ending 2019. It closed around 200 stores from 2017. What survived all of that is the appetite for exactly this kind of product: colour led Dunk releases that people track, queue for and trade.

The build is the standard Dunk Low: a low collar with a padded ankle, a two panel leather style upper, and a flat rubber cup sole with very little between your foot and the ground. Indigo Haze on the overlays against a pale base is a low contrast combination, which changes how the shoe wears. Instead of the panel split shouting, the colour behaves almost like a single tone from a distance. Nike's grip heritage runs back to Bowerman's waffle iron and the lighter, tackier soles that followed, and the Dunk sole is that idea at its flattest. Pale violet holds dirt visibly, so protect early, clean with foam rather than water, and keep it away from dark denim on the toe.