Nike Celebrate Chinese Valentine’s Day with Special His and Hers React Element 55 “Qixi”

Release

2019.08.07

Brand

Nike

Model

REACT ELEMENT 55

SKU

CN5798-101, CN5797-011

Color

N/A

Dropped

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For the Love Birds 💏

China’s annual Qixi Festival (Qi meaning seven, Xi meaning night) harkens back thousands of years. It’s held on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, this year falling on August 7th. The festival originated from the romantic legend of two lovers, Zhinü and Niulang — the weaver girl and the cowherd. The tale of The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl has been celebrated in the Qixi Festival since the Han dynasty and has since served as Chinese Valentine’s Day, thanks to the tale’s timeless story of love. This year, Nike will be celebrating the event with a special his and her edition of the Nike React Element 55.

Arriving in alternate iridescent makeups, with the mens pair rocks a full emerald upper paired with black suede overlays, white underlays and a white Swoosh outline on the profile. The women’s pair arrives inverted, coming fitted with white uppers and overlays, with the Swoosh outline and underlays arriving in iridescent emerald. Both pairs are hit with red branding and exposed overlay stitching, black tongues, and white sole units.

It was said that if it rains on this day that it was caused by a river sweeping away the magpie bridge or that the rain is the tears of the separated couple. Based on the legend of a flock of magpies forming a bridge to reunite the couple, a pair of magpies came to symbolize conjugal happiness and faithfulness — hence the duo of magpie motifs on each pair’s heel, with the bird men’s pair holding a marriage band in its mouth. Fittingly, the day is the most common for Chinese natives to pop the question, and Nike’s words “Today is the Day” printed on the insoles serve as words of encouragement for the men, and relief —or forewarning — for the ladies!

Take a peep at both pairs below in detail, and expect these to arrive at select Swoosh stockists throughout Asia on August 3rd. A Stateside release is still TBC.

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