- Nike Atelier's Total 90 boot, built for Wembanyama, remixes the 2000s-era Total 90 Laser III into a white leather lifestyle sneaker expected to retail around $470.
- The capsule also includes a bespoke LenoWoven jacket made from a cotton-yarn adaptation of Nike Football boot material.
- Preorders open July 20, 2026, via SNKRS Reserve and select stores in Paris and New York; Nike hasn't confirmed if the shoe is playable on-field or lifestyle-only.
- Wembanyama becomes the latest athlete after Désiré Doué to front a Nike Atelier capsule.
Nike Atelier has tapped Victor Wembanyama for its newest athlete capsule, pairing the San Antonio Spurs center with a soccer-inspired remake of the Total 90 boot. Preorders open July 20, 2026, through Nike SNKRS, The Broken Arm and Dover Street Market in Paris, and Nike’s flagship stores in New York.
The headline piece, the Atelier Total 90, reworks the Total 90 Laser III from the 2000s into a tonal white lifestyle sneaker with a folded tongue and a translucent Air Max-style sole, expected to retail around $470.
The capsule also adds a bespoke LenoWoven jacket, built from a cotton-yarn adaptation of material Nike originally developed for football boots.
The 7-foot-4 star, who needs custom tailoring since standard sizing doesn’t fit him, has been a Nike athlete since 2023 via the brand’s “Winning Isn’t for Everyone” campaign, making Total 90 his most personal Swoosh collaboration yet.
He joins an exclusive shortlist of athletes given the custom Atelier treatment. Following tennis champion Jannik Sinner’s initial launch and a recent Mercurial-themed capsule for PSG winger Désiré Doué, Wembanyama becomes the latest global star to front the luxury line.
Nike has leaned hard into basketball too, recently locking in projected No. 1 draft pick AJ Dybantsa on a multi-year extension built around his signature logo.
For Nike, Atelier has become a way to give select athletes couture-level treatment instead of a standard signature line, and putting Wembanyama’s outsized frame at the center of a soccer boot bets that his crossover appeal reaches well past the NBA.
Takeaways
This isn’t Nike testing the waters with Wembanyama; it’s building on a relationship that’s already three years deep.
What’s notable is the category jump: instead of another basketball shoe, Nike is putting its tallest star behind a soccer boot, treating Atelier less like merch and more like a rotating “face of the moment” program.
Combined with the Doué and Dybantsa moves, Nike looks like it’s assembling its next generation of global crossover stars while its veteran roster ages out.
Does dressing a basketball player in soccer gear signal that Nike sees Wembanyama’s appeal as bigger than any one sport? Could the Total 90’s design hint at more sport-blending Atelier drops down the line?
