Off-White x Nike Blazer Mid 'Grim Reaper' (The Ten)

Ten shoes in ten months

On August 21, 2017, Nike announced "The Ten," a collaboration with Virgil Abloh, founder of the label Off-White, that reworked ten footwear icons. Nike described it as one of the fastest collaborations it had ever completed: ten shoes in about ten months from idea to release. The shoes were split into two themes. "Revealing" was meant to look hand-cut, open-source and reconstructed, and included the Air Jordan I, Air Max 90, Air Presto, Air VaporMax and the Nike Blazer Mid. "Ghosting" used translucent uppers.

Abloh's tool of choice was an X-ACTO knife. He used it to expose the foam inside each tongue, move the Nike labels, shift and sometimes enlarge the Swoosh, and add orange tabs. He printed deadpan labels on the shoes, such as "SHOELACES" on the laces, and stamped each pair inside with "Off-White for Nike," the model name, "Beaverton, Oregon USA" and "C. 2017." Every shoe carried the Off-White zip tie. "Most of the creative decisions were made in the first three hours," he told Nike, "while actual design and iteration took two to three days."

The first five Revealing shoes, the Blazer among them, were pre-released at NikeLab stores in New York, London, Milan and Paris in September 2017, with the full collection due worldwide that November. The collection sold out, and Nike kept adding new colorways of the shoes through 2018 and 2019.

The man with the knife

Abloh was born on September 30, 1980, in Rockford, Illinois. He studied civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and interned at Fendi in 2009 alongside Kanye West. He founded the streetwear line Pyrex Vision in 2012 and turned it into the Milan-based label Off-White in 2013.

His relationship with Nike started long before the contract. As a teenager in Rockford, he told Nike, he and his friends sketched shoe ideas and mailed them to the company. "We were enamored with Air Jordans," he said. On his first visit to Nike's headquarters in October 2016, he cut up a pair of triple-black Air Force 1s and drew on them with markers, the exercise that led to The Ten.

In 2018, the year of the Grim Reaper, Abloh's profile changed again. On March 25 he was named artistic director of Louis Vuitton's menswear, the first person of African descent to lead the house's menswear line, and he showed his first collection in the Palais-Royal gardens in Paris that June. He kept designing for Nike at the same time.

A Halloween pack

In 2018 Abloh shared two new colorways of his Blazer Mid himself and gave them their names: an all-black pair called "Grim Reaper" and a cream-and-orange pair called "All Hallows Eve." Release reports at the time called them the Halloween pack or the "Spooky Pack."

The date moved several times. The pair were first expected on September 15 and 22, 2018; stockists then set September 27; and finally both arrived on October 3, 2018, at 10 a.m. Eastern through a draw on Nike's SNKRS app and at select retailers, at the standard $130 each.

Coverage on release day described the Grim Reaper as "draped in an upper of tonal black hues," with the translucent mesh paneling drawing the most attention, along with the industrial text on the medial side, large contrasting Swooshes, a tacked patch and the zip tie.

How to know one

The Grim Reaper is a black Blazer Mid with a white Swoosh and an all-black sole, built on the deconstructed Off-White pattern: an exposed-foam tongue, a translucent mesh panel, oversized Swooshes and Off-White's printed text on the medial side. Its style code is AA3832-001 and its colorway is listed as Black/White-Cone-Black. Its companion, the All Hallows Eve, uses the same pattern in vanilla and orange under the code AA3832-700. The original 2017 Blazer from The Ten came in the light beige used across that collection.

Complete pairs come with the accessories Abloh packed with his Nike shoes: Off-White Nike paper, a blue Off-White zip tie in place of the red tie on the 2017 shoes, and spare white flat and orange laces printed "SHOELACES." Nike's retail name for the shoe begins "The 10: Blazer Mid," which is why it is often filed with The Ten, although it came out a year after the original ten shoes as a later colorway.

After Abloh

Abloh was diagnosed in 2019 with cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare cancer, and kept the diagnosis private. He died in Chicago on November 28, 2021, at 41.

On October 1, 2026, the lowest asking price for a new pair on one major resale marketplace was $617, more than four times the $130 retail price.

The numbers

Release date

October 3, 2018

Retail price

$130

Style code

AA3832-001

Colorway

Black/White-Cone-Black

Release method

Nike SNKRS draw at 10 a.m. ET plus select retailers

Production

Not disclosed by Nike or Off-White in any source found

Timeline

1. 1973

   Nike releases the Blazer as a basketball shoe, named for the Portland Trail Blazers.

2. Oct 2016

   Virgil Abloh makes his first visit to Nike's headquarters and cuts up a pair of Air Force 1s, the start of The Ten.

3. Aug 21, 2017

   Nike and Abloh announce "The Ten," including the Revealing Blazer Mid.

4. Sep 2017

   The first five Revealing shoes, including the Blazer, are pre-released at NikeLab stores in New York, London, Milan and Paris.

5. Mar 25, 2018

   Abloh is named artistic director of Louis Vuitton menswear.

6. Jun 2018

   Abloh shows his first Louis Vuitton collection in Paris.

7. 2018

   Abloh shares the "Grim Reaper" and "All Hallows Eve" Blazers; releases are first expected September 15 and 22.

8. Sep 2018

   Stockists push the release to September 27, then to October 3.

9. Oct 3, 2018

   The Grim Reaper and All Hallows Eve release at 10 a.m. Eastern via a Nike SNKRS draw and select retailers, $130 each.

10. 2019

    Abloh's exhibition "Figures of Speech" opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, including early samples from his Nike work.

11. Nov 28, 2021

    Virgil Abloh dies in Chicago at age 41.

12. Oct 1, 2026

    Lowest asking price for a new pair on one major resale marketplace: $617.

The world in 2018

• Jul 10, 2018

  Twelve boys and their soccer coach are rescued from the flooded Tham Luang cave in Thailand after a 17-day ordeal.

• Jul 15, 2018

  France beats Croatia 4-2 to win the FIFA World Cup final.

• Aug 2, 2018

  Apple becomes the first public company valued at $1 trillion.

• Aug 20, 2018

  Fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg begins her school strike for the climate in Sweden.

• Sep 2, 2018

  Fire destroys most of the collection of the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro.

• Sep 28, 2018

  A magnitude 7.5 earthquake and tsunami strike Sulawesi, Indonesia, killing more than 4,000 people.

• Oct 2, 2018

  Journalist Jamal Khashoggi is murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the day before the Grim Reaper's release.

Price record

This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.

By reference price, Off-White x Nike Blazer Mid 'Grim Reaper' (The Ten) is number 61 of 100 in the sneakers entries of the FLOAT 100. 22 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (20 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Abloh said most creative decisions for The Ten were made in the first three hours.
• As a teenager in Rockford, Illinois, Abloh mailed sneaker sketches to Nike.
• The name came from Abloh himself, who announced the black pair as "Grim Reaper" and its partner as "All Hallows Eve."
• The Grim Reaper ships with a blue zip tie, not the red one that came on the original 2017 shoes of The Ten.
• The Blazer, first released in 1973, is tied to George "The Iceman" Gervin, the first athlete to receive an exclusive shoe from Nike.
• Its release date slipped from mid-September to October 3, 2018, still in time for Halloween.