Nike Dunk High SB Hawaii

Two recipes for a warm-toned high-top. First, let it be the loudest thing you own: black or washed indigo jeans stacked slightly over the collar, a plain white tee, nothing else competing. Second, lean into the island register with wide cream or khaki work trousers and an open camp-collar shirt over a tank, which pulls the colourway into the outfit instead of leaving it stranded at the floor. Lace the top pair of eyelets if you actually skate, skip them if you want the collar to flop open. Wear these for skating, long summer days and travel, not rain. Spot-clean the panels by hand, never machine wash a padded collar, and air them out fully before storage.

SB's power came from borrowing the visual language of subcultures, and Nike has not always got that borrowing right. In 2005 the line appropriated Minor Threat's album art for a tour flyer, drew a public rebuke from Ian MacKaye, apologised on 27 June that year and settled out of court. That episode is the honest frame for every SB release since: the line lives or dies on whether the people it borrows from recognise themselves in it. Place-led builds like this Hawaii pair sit on the safer side of that line, drawing on landscape and colour rather than someone else's artwork, and they are the releases skate shops have historically been happiest to stand behind.

A high-top skate build asks for different things than a court build. The collar sits above the ankle and is padded so it holds through impact rather than folding, the tongue is thicker than a standard Dunk so laces do not bite through the top of the foot, and the panels along the lateral side take the abrasion that a griptape-heavy shoe eats first. Nike's engineering heritage here is the outsole: the waffle tread Bowerman produced in his wife's waffle iron was invented to grip while staying light, and grip without bulk is exactly what a board demands. Wearing it, expect a stiffer first week from the tall collar, then a shoe that softens into one of the most forgiving high-tops Nike makes.