Kobe Bryant this week picked the "perfect way to introduce" his new Nike sneaker line Kobe A.D. (After Death), as it was unveiled on Día de los Muertos, but it was "low-key by industry standards," according to Brett Pollakoff of FOXSPORTS.com. Bryant held the event in a "small gallery space in downtown L.A.," and as soon as visitors entered the gallery, the Día de los Muertos theme was "impactful immediately." The room was "dark and lit only by candles, as slowly paced classical piano music played softly in the background." The lights on the floor were in the "formation of a basketball court, while the back of the room featured risers with Bryant's memorabilia laid out among the many lit candles." Bryant: "It’s a concept that kind of came to me years ago. Thinking about the end of my career, and it almost feeling like a death because I’ve been playing basketball for so long. It was my life for a while. So to walk away from that kind of has that death experience, right?" Pollakoff noted it was Bryant's idea to "ditch the numbering convention that has been in place for the previous 11 models of the Kobe line of sneakers, and the A.D. moniker made sense to him after feeling like he's 'passed away' from the game." The low-top silhouette "isn't drastically different than what we've seen in Kobe's line in recent years, and it's a subtle overall design with the only sign of flash coming in the form of a reflective piece around the heel" (FOXSPORTS.com, 11/2).
