AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER
NIKE has landed themselves in hot water with Vanessa Bryant.
Bryant called out Nike on an Instagram post for leaking images of a pair of basketball shoes she worked on with the athletic wear giant, in honour of her and Kobe’s daughter Gianna, to the public without her consent.
In her post, she also added the leaked image of the shoe which was sent to her by an anonymous person in the same post as the message.
The leaked shoes were to be called the “Mambacita” sneaker, which was Gianna’s nickname, as she trained with her father Kobe in his Mamba basketball academy.
The shoes had taken inspiration from Kobe Bryant’s Mamba basketball shoes, but were created with a black/white/gold colourway, instead of the purple/yellow colourway, reflecting the colours of Kobe’s Mamba Sports Academy (now renamed the Mamba & Mambacita Sports Foundation).
“This is a shoe I worked on in honour of my daughter, Gianna. The ‘Mambacita’ is an exclusive black and white colourway on her daddy’s shoes,” Bryant wrote on Instagram.
Bryant added that the profits from the Mambacita’s sales would be going to the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation, and didn’t give the green light for the shoes to be sold, as Kobe Bryant’s contract with Nike had expired in April with Bryant opting not to renew.
The shoes were first leaked on Twitter by American account Bleacher Report Kicks, calling them the Nike Kobe 6 Protro “Mamba Forever” colorway, and saying they will be released “later this year.”
Bleacher Report’s announcement resulted in the domino effect of other sneaker e-commerce sites sharing images of the “Mambacita” shoe with reports that the shoes would be available for purchase in July, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
“The MAMBACITA shoes are NOT approved for sale,” she said. “The MAMBACITA shoes were not approved to be made in the first place.”
Bryant further asked why the images were released when neither her or her three daughters had not received the shoes.
“Nike has NOT sent any of these pairs to me and my girls,” she said. “I do not know how someone else has their hands on shoes I designed in honor of my daughter Gigi and we don’t. I hope these shoes did not get sold.”
A number of people in the comments section said that a sneaker shop in the United Kingdom called Footpatrol had released the shoes for a raffle that was allegedly meant to be for the Kobe 6 Protro Del Sol colorway.
