FLOAT 100 · Sneakers · No. 40
sacai x Nike VaporWaffle 'Dark Iris'
Two running shoes 34 years apart, fused into one by a Tokyo designer who built her label by splicing garments together, then dressed in deep purple and orange: the 'Dark Iris' is the VaporWaffle at its loudest.
- Year
- 2021
- Maker
- Nike x sacai
- By price in sneakers
- 89 of 100
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Create a free account- Official name
- sacai x Nike VaporWaffle 'Dark Iris'
- Style code
- DD1875-500
- Colorway
- Dark Iris/Campfire Orange-White
- Designer
- Chitose Abe, founder of the Tokyo label sacai, with Nike
- Built from
- Nike's 1983 Pegasus and 2017 Vaporfly running shoes, on a waffle outsole
- Signature details
- Doubled tongues, Swooshes, heel branding and laces; one printed Swoosh dropping into the midsole
- Released
- April 29, 2021, on Nike's SNKRS app and at select retailers, alongside the 'Sesame' colorway
- Retail price
- $180
- Production
- Not published by Nike
A designer who splices things together
Chitose Abe, born Chitose Sakai in 1965 in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, grew up the daughter of a seamstress and made clothes for her dolls. After college in Nagoya and a year at a large apparel company, she moved to Comme des Garcons as a pattern maker and then worked as a pattern maker for Junya Watanabe when he started his own label.
She stopped working in 1997 when she became pregnant. Two years later, in 1999, she started sacai, styled in lowercase, with five hand-knitted pieces. Department stores and boutiques in New York and Paris picked it up, and she showed in Paris from 2009. Her signature is what she calls hybridization: two or more garments fused into one. Fashion critics have credited the label with breaking down the line between casual and formal clothing.
That instinct for fusing two things is exactly what she brought to Nike. She won Japan's Mainichi Fashion Award in 2007 and 2015 and was named Designer of the Year by a leading streetwear publication in 2025.
Nike and sacai, round two
The partnership began in 2015, when NikeLab enlisted sacai for a women's spring capsule. Abe said the goal was "to transform classic performance apparel and footwear icons into functional, fresh and modern sports hybrids." The capsule's laceless Air Max 90 and Dunk High drew interest but were seen at the time as a passing fling.
In 2018 the two returned with what Abe called a "commitment to reinvent, reinterpret and innovate pieces from the Nike archive." Two new shoes walked the sacai spring/summer 2019 runway in Paris: the LDWaffle, which stacked the 1970s Nike LDV and Waffle Racer into one shoe, and a doubled-up Blazer Mid. When the LDWaffle went on sale in 2019 it sold out instantly and reappeared on the resale market at a markup; one sneaker content specialist described the designs as looking 'as though two sneakers were fighting for the spotlight within one shoe.'
The waffle sole itself carries a piece of Nike lore: co-founder Bill Bowerman made the outsole for an early Nike running shoe on his wife's waffle iron.
Pegasus meets Vaporfly
The VaporWaffle first appeared on sacai's fall/winter 2020 runway at Paris Fashion Week in January 2020. After nine months of teasers and leaks, Nike announced that it would release on November 13, 2020, in two colorways, one white with red and blue and one black, at $180.
The shoe combines two influential Nike running models from more than three decades apart: the Pegasus of 1983 and the record-breaking Vaporfly of 2017. Its stacked midsole has an elongated heel and a raised lip. On top sits a mesh, suede and leather upper in which almost everything comes in twos: two tongues, two sets of laces, doubled heel branding and two Swooshes on each side, one in leather in the manner of the Pegasus and one printed and set low, dropping into the midsole in the manner of the Vaporfly. Underneath is a waffle outsole.
For spring 2021 the line expanded with four more colorways: Sesame/Blue Void-White, White/Sail-Sail, Black/Off-Noir-Off-Noir and Dark Iris/Campfire Orange-White.
The 'Dark Iris'
Of the spring 2021 group, the 'Dark Iris' was the boldest. One sneaker publication called it 'brooding': deep purple runs through the eyestays, both tongues and the suede overlays. The mesh is shaded dark navy near the laces, the ribbon laces sit on top, and an extra printed Swoosh appears just below. White shows on the midsole and lining, and Campfire Orange picks out the heel tabs and Swooshes. Another release site described the purple-and-orange scheme as Lakers-like.
Nike confirmed that the 'Dark Iris' and the much quieter 'Sesame' would release together on April 29, 2021, through its SNKRS app and select retailers worldwide, many of which used raffles. The price was $180. Nike did not publish production numbers.
By the start of 2021, one fashion retailer's editors wrote, sacai x Nike had become omnipresent, and the partners began bringing in third collaborators and new silhouettes, including a sacai Cortez introduced in January 2022, to keep the line fresh. Resale prices for the 'Dark Iris' have stayed modest: on October 1, 2026, the lowest listed price at one large resale shop was $234, in a men's size 11.5, with other sizes listed up to $441.
The numbers
- Style code
- DD1875-500
- Colorway
- Dark Iris/Campfire Orange-White
- Release date
- April 29, 2021
- Retail price
- $180
- Release channels
- Nike SNKRS app and select retailers, many by raffle
- Released with
- The 'Sesame' colorway, same day
- Production
- Not published by Nike
Timeline
Chitose Abe (née Sakai) is born in Gifu Prefecture, Japan.
Abe stops working after becoming pregnant.
Abe founds sacai.
sacai makes its debut in Paris.
NikeLab and sacai release a women's capsule including a laceless Air Max 90 and Dunk High.
The LDWaffle and a hybrid Blazer Mid debut on sacai's spring/summer 2019 runway in Paris.
The sacai x Nike LDWaffle and Blazer Mid release and sell out instantly.
The VaporWaffle appears on sacai's fall/winter 2020 runway at Paris Fashion Week.
The first two VaporWaffle colorways release at $180.
The 'Dark Iris' (DD1875-500) and 'Sesame' release on SNKRS and at select retailers for $180.
A sacai x Nike Cortez is introduced in sacai's fall/winter 2022 lookbook.
The lowest listed resale price for the 'Dark Iris' at one large shop is $234.
The world in 2021
Hideki Matsuyama won the Masters, the first man from Japan to win a major golf championship.
Japan's government approved releasing radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi plant into the Pacific over about 30 years.
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter made the first powered flight on another planet.
COVID-19 vaccinations administered worldwide passed 1 billion.
Joe Biden became the first U.S. president to formally recognize the Armenian genocide.
The Tokyo Summer Olympics, postponed a year by the pandemic, opened.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Apr 29, 2021 | $180 | Asking price, not a saleOriginal retail price. |
| Oct 1, 2026 | $234 | Asking price, not a saleLowest listed price at a large resale shop, men's size 11.5. |
| Oct 1, 2026 | $441 | Asking price, not a saleHighest listed size at the same shop, men's size 9.5. |
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, sacai x Nike VaporWaffle 'Dark Iris' is number 89 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 (40 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- The VaporWaffle fuses running shoes from 1983 and 2017, 34 years apart.
- Each shoe has two tongues, two sets of laces and two Swooshes per side, one of them printed so it dips into the midsole.
- Chitose Abe launched sacai in 1999 with just five hand-knitted pieces.
- Before founding sacai, Abe was a pattern maker at Comme des Garcons and for Junya Watanabe.
- The waffle outsole traces back to Bill Bowerman's experiments with his wife's waffle iron.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 1, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026