Shoe Palace on Melrose sold out three sneakers in under an hour on February 13th, and nobody in India even knew the collection existed until it showed up on secondary-market threads days later. That was the first "Trophies" drop — Victor Solomon's collaboration with Nike, built around Los Angeles' own neighbourhoods. Five months on, on July 22nd, the same three silhouettes came back blacked-out for WNBA All-Star Weekend, and the sellout problem repeated itself. This time with more gold.
Solomon isn't a household name outside basketball design circles, but the Los Angeles-based artist has quietly become one of Nike's go-to collaborators for anything that needs to look like it belongs in a trophy case. The "Trophies" collection is exactly that premise, taken literally.
What Actually Dropped on July 22nd
The original February collection paired three models with three LA districts: the Air Foamposite One "Westside Beaches" carried a black-on-white graphic meant to evoke water and sand, the Air Force 1 Low "Sunset Strip" used cracked leather, and the Air Max 90 "Downtown Diamond District" leaned on metallic accents referencing the city's jewellery district, as Sneaker Bar Detroit first detailed. Around 1,000 pairs of each went out through Shoe Palace on Melrose, with the launch built as an event — interactive basketball-themed art workshops ran alongside the sell, treating the release more like an art opening than a shoe drop.
The July 22nd release, "Trophies Black," strips the pack down to one blacked-out palette across all three shoes, tied to WNBA All-Star Weekend instead. The Air Max 90, style code IR2074-002, retails at $250. The Foamposite One, IR2077-001, is $350. Both carry smooth leather on the mudguard and toe, rougher textured panels up front, a crystal-embellished Swoosh, and Solomon's signature embroidered on the heel. One shoe in the pair gets chain laces; the other keeps it simple with a metallic lace lock. All three release through Nike SNKRS and a short list of retail partners.
Pairing this colourway with WNBA All-Star Weekend rather than the NBA version feels deliberate, and it's a smart read of the room — the league's signature-shoe boom has made this the moment sneaker brands actually compete for a spot next to women's basketball, not just tolerate it as a February afterthought slot.
The Resale Math India Buyers Need to See
Nike SNKRS India did not carry this drop. It rarely does for artist collaborations this small — a few thousand pairs split three ways isn't a quantity anyone allocates to a market that still buys most of its Nike through the mainline catalogue. So if you want the Foamposite, you're buying resale, and resale already has an opinion, as Sneakers Cartel reported this week — the outlet flagged that the drop "may face availability challenges given typical Foamposite scarcity at retail" before a single pair had even shipped.
On StockX, the Foamposite One "Trophies Black" is asking $499 against a $350 retail — a premium of roughly 43% within hours of release. At today's rate of about ₹96.5 to the dollar, that's a straight currency conversion of roughly ₹48,150, before any shipping, customs duty, or GST gets added on top. The Air Max 90 and Air Force 1, both $250 at retail, convert to about ₹24,125 each on the same basis — and that's before the resale bump either one is likely carrying by the time it reaches an Indian reseller.
Is a 43% premium on a shoe that released the same week actually justified? Not really. Early resale spikes on any limited Nike collab are mostly FOMO pricing — the same buyers who missed the SNKRS raffle paying whatever the first sellers ask. Foamposites in general hold value better than most basketball silhouettes because Nike restocks them rarely, but "Trophies Black" hasn't been out long enough to prove it's a keeper rather than a launch-week spike. Give it until the next WNBA All-Star Weekend before treating $499 as a floor rather than a launch-day ceiling.
Our Take
The blacked-out colourway is the better buy of the two "Trophies" releases, and it isn't close. February's pack leaned so hard into "LA neighbourhood" storytelling that the actual shoes got lost — the Foamposite's black-on-white graphic in particular photographed better than it wore. Black with metallic gold hardware does what every good all-black colourway should: let the silhouette and the details do the talking instead of the concept.
Should you import it? If you already collect Foamposites, yes — this is a genuinely well-executed one, and Nike doesn't make a new Foamposite colourway every month. If you're chasing it purely because WNBA All-Star Weekend made it trend on your timeline, wait. A pack this small usually gets a wider release eventually, and paying ₹48,000-plus for launch-week hype rarely ages well.
The Air Max 90 and Air Force 1 are the more sensible entry points for Indian buyers anyway. At roughly ₹24,125 before duty, either is still a stretch compared to what SNKRS India actually stocks, but a retro runner travels better in carry-on luggage than an oversized Foamposite shell does — worth remembering if you're buying on a trip abroad rather than through a reshipper. Either way, this is a collection built for people who already know exactly what they're chasing; it was never designed to convert anyone new to the idea of an artist-collab basketball shoe, and it doesn't need to.
What it does need is patience from anyone outside the US. SNKRS India expansion has been slow and selective, and small-batch artist packs like this one sit near the bottom of that priority list. Until that changes, importing remains the only real path in — so budget for it honestly rather than being surprised by the final landed number at checkout.
If courtside basketball silhouettes are more your speed than artist collabs, browse what's actually in stock on our Nike shelf — and if you're tracking how the league's growth is reshaping signature sneaker releases more broadly, our WNBA sneaker boom breakdown is worth a read next.
