Social Status x Nike Air Penny 2 “Playground”: Sneaker Release Date, Price, Where To Buy

After the success of their Penny 1 collab, Social Status is back. The brand is collaborating once again with Nike on a Penny Hardaway classic, this time the Air Penny 2. The first of two colorways to drop will see a release on Thursday, Oct. 13, for a retail price of $200. This was delayed from an original release date of Sept. 30.

As I’ve said before, the Penny line from Nike is one of the greatest signature athlete lines of all time. The Air Penny 2 continued the excellence of the Air Max Penny 1, again designed by Eric Avar. This model carried over some of the design elements of the Penny 1 — a “wing” or sorts, reflective 3M hits, the classic 1 cent logo — albeit with new twists. For cushioning, the shoe features Zoom Air in the forefoot and Max Air in the heel.

Penny wore the sneakers for the 1996-97 season, the first for the Magic in the post-Shaq era. Orlando was now Penny’s kingdom and the Magic was his team, and Nike celebrated that by giving him a classic shoe. Further shining a spotlight on Hardaway and his sneakers while also carrying over from the Penny 1 was the iconic commercial partnership between Penny and Lil’ Penny, aka Chris Rock.

For this special collab, the Penny 2 features a black suede upper with 3M piping and an updated white “wing” of sorts. The reflective 3M circle near the back of the shoe features the Nike Swoosh mixed with Social Status’ logo as opposed to either just the Swoosh or the 1 cent logo, while Penny’s logo is seen in the jewel on the tongue and the Swoosh is seen on the back of the shoe. The colorway releasing Friday also swaps out the royal blue associated with the Orlando Magic with a Carolina blue, perhaps a nod to Social Status’ ties to Charlotte. Also, let’s take a moment to appreciate the packaging, which as noted by the brand in their tweet, resembles toy packaging with colors mirroring those used on the sneaker.

Social Status once again dropped a short film, “Playground,” to support the release and distill the message behind the collab, following up on the “Recess” story from the Penny 1 collab earlier this year. This time, the film centers on an after-school 1-on-1 showdown for high school supremacy.

The shoes will release on Sept. 30 for $200 on the Social Status website at 11 a.m. ET in the Black/Carolina colorway. A release date has not yet been announced for the White/Carolina colorway

Best of luck to all who will be going for a pair of what will surely be highly-coveted sneakers.

To see more of this month’s releases, check out our release date calendar.