Nike x Tom Sachs General Purpose Shoe: Everything You Need to Know

The year 2022 marked a decade of American artist and designer Tom Sachs’s ongoing partnership with Nike, which the two call NikeCraft. So far, NikeCraft has produced six shoes: four widespread releases — the original Mars Yard (2012), the Mars Yard 2.0 (2017) and the Mars Yard Overshoe (2019) and the all-new General Purpose Shoe, which debuted in 2022 — and two friends-and-family pairs — a Cole Haan Mission Control Wingtip (2012) and the Mars Yard 2.5 (2020).

The initial outer-space theme stemmed from Sachs’s artistic study of the moon landing. Creating everything from new NASA posters to to-scale space shuttles kitted with hidden bar carts, he made one of the most memorable feats of human engineering feel fun, all while building a cult following for his in-house studio team, The Tom Sachs Studio.

Their uniforms went viral online, and they were often the first to test the newest Sachs-designed sneaker and provide valuable, practical feedback. That’s how we got here, to a simple, function-first silhouette Sachs proudly calls “boring”: the General Purpose Shoe, which retails for $109.99.

But, will it continue to evolve like the earlier Mars Yard or is this a one-off release? Which colors are out now, and are there more coming? And, how are these so cheap when other Tom Sachs sneakers sell for way more? These questions, and more, answered below.

Nike x Tom Sachs General Purpose Shoe: What to Know

Tom Sachs Studio

Sachs put function first.

“Creativity is the enemy,” Tom Sachs’s recently published General Purpose Shoe manifesto starts. “Just because you can doesn’t always mean you should. Resist newness for newness’ sake. Build on a proven foundation and innovate incrementally. Study what came before: its shape, its weight, its colors, who it’s for and what it does. Use, observe, design, build, test, fail, repeat. True development is the practice of continuous refinement.”

Fittingly the General Purpose Shoe’s puts function over form. Sachs is quite literal here: the sole function of a soled sneaker is to be a conduit between you and the ground. It’s supposed to get you where you’re going, not get in the way. (“GPS” is a fitting acronym.)

“This sneaker is a product of our ongoing research into how our bodies meet the ground. We opened up the archive, wore it out, stripped it down, kept what worked and added what was missing in pursuit of a perennial sneaker,” the manifesto-meets-ad continues. “An ever-better sneaker. A never-settle sneaker. A round-the-clock, made-to-last, built-to-code sneaker.”

These sneakers are built like boots.

Sachs wanted the General Purpose shoe to perform like a trusty boot, with mindless consistency.

It comprises a durable knit upper with suede and synthetic accents, interior ankle and arch supports, a foam insert insole, a gum-colored cupsole and a standard, waffle-like outsole, which is allegedly replaceable. That would mean sneaker is resoleable like a well-made boot, but there’s no hard proof it can be done — yet. But boot expert Rose Anvil says a professional cobbler shouldn’t run into any issues trying to replace the outsole on a General Purpose Shoe, given you’ve worn down the outsole a little, which shortens the nibs and loosens the adhesive that binds it to the rest of the shoe.

There will be more colors — just not a purple pair.

There will surely be more pairs of the General Purpose Shoe — it’s essentially guaranteed at this point. It’s an easy silhouette to remix and remake, thanks to its simple construction and clearly defined sections. So far, there have been three official colorways — Dark Sulfur (or Archive), Field Brown and White — but loads more concepts and leaks — grey, white and red, and white and yellow.

And though loads more iterations are probably on the way, don’t expect to see a purple pair, or any pair that incorporates purple: “The color puple is a forbidden color,” Sachs said in his 2011 film, Color, and in a photo essay for Frank Ocean’s 2016 print publication, Boys Don’t Cry Magazine: Volume 1. “The color purple is forbidden in the studio. The color purple is punishable by death. There is never an excuse for the color purple.”

Nike worked to make this affordable sneaker more accessible, like at Kohl’s.

It would be fair to assume a high-profile sneaker release like this one would demand shelf space in the finest of sneaker boutiques, but one of the primary goals of Sachs’s General Purpose Shoe was to make a sneaker for the masses. Sure, the usual suspects sold pairs — Nike and its consigliere — but there was one unexpected stockist that sent shoppers running to their nearest strip mall: Kohl’s.

For a while, Tom Sachs’s General Purpose Shoe could be found in select Kohl’s stores. It was the same price as online — $109.99 — plus tax, depending on where you lived. That being said, they aren’t sold in Kohl’s stores anymore, but there’s a good chance a similar “stunt” will be pulled with future restocks.

Tom Sachs Studio

Nike x Tom Sachs General Purpose Shoe Colorways: Out Now and Forthcoming

Nike Tom Sachs General Purpose Shoe ‘White’

StockX

COLOR: WHITE

Nike Tom Sachs General Purpose Shoe

• $110.00 at StockX

This colorway came first. It was how the world met the General Purpose Shoe, even if other iterations are now more popular. It’s the simplest of this already simple ensemble.

Nike Tom Sachs General Purpose Shoe ‘Archive’

StockX

COLOR: Tom Sachs Archive Dark Sulfur

Nike Tom Sachs General Purpose Shoe

• $2.00 at StockX
  $110.00 (98% off)

Dubbed Archive (or Dark Sulfur or simply Yellow), this pair is far more than just a pop of color.

Nike Tom Sachs General Purpose Shoe ‘Field Brown’

StockX

COLOR: Field Brown

Nike Tom Sachs General Purpose Shoe

• $105.00 at StockX
  $110.00 (5% off)

Brown, or Field Brown, is Sachs’s new baby. This colorway is still relatively new in terms of sneaker releases.

More About Tom Sachs x Nike

Who Is Tom Sachs?

Tom Sachs is a New York City-born sculptor, studio director and sneaker designer, among other things. Above all else, Sachs “shows his work,” as his biography puts it. “All the steps that led up to the end result are always on display. On a practical level, this means that all seams, joints, screws or, for that matter, anything holding stuff together, like foam-core and plywood, are left exposed. Nothing is erased, sanded away, or rendered invisible. On a more philosophical level, this means that nothing Sachs makes is ever finished.”

Have Tom Sachs and Nike Collaborated Before?

Yes, the Mars Yard project is perpetually “in progress” like all of Sachs’ work, though seemingly paused while the General Purpose Shoe takes center stage. Sachs has pointedly never ruled out a Mars Yard 3.0. For now, though, sneaker fans should expect the General Purpose Shoe to be Sachs’s primary focus, at least when it comes to footwear design.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t buy other Sachs sneakers. Each one of the artist’s sneakers thus far can be found on resale sites like StockX, GOAT or Grailed and in sneaker boutiques like Stadium Goods and Flight Club, albeit for way more than retail. Here’s a look at how much Sachs’s sneakers go for right now:

• Mars Yard: $7,125 (Retail: $385)
• Mars Yard 2.0: $5,793 (Retail: $200)
• Mars Yard Overshoe: $790 (Retail: $55)

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