Sport is art, apparently…though clearly nobody told the English national football team, which, for many year, has been working on the assumption that sport is comedy.
 Anyway, Nike says it’s so , and ,to back up that statement, they are sponsoring tiki-taka artists Barcelona. So there, And they have a shop that demonstrates that, too.
They sure know how to make a point over at Just-do-it HQ.

 The shop is situated on a side street in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay district, and has an industrial-design vibe with exposed pipes and stripped concrete walls. Walk though the open, door-less facade and there is a vestibule decorated with neon lights and graphic-on-glass wall-displays that serve as brand-conscious art installations. Beyond lie the shopping areas where standoffish Nike tee shirts hang indifferently from pegs on mirrored walls – too cool t be purchased, perhaps. Wire partitions separate the various zones of a space that is as much modern art gallery as retail experience.

 Designing this bold statement shop was Seiki MORI, a Japanese native whose Hong Kong-based studio ARRT was awarded the commission. The result is part cage-fighting venue, part stylish boutique, and yet somehow decidedly Hong Kong. The neon lights probably achieve that last quality. This is certainly an unusual retail space: chic yet in-your-face; formatted yet raw.

 Actually the shop is now something else, with Nike changing the theme of this arty establishment every few months. And like some clumsy English centre-half left in Leo Messi’s wake, we can’t keep up.

  The Causeway Bay Nike shop was, for a time, known as FUSE (or The Artistic Space Formerly Known As Sport is Art), And this was s sparser, less illuminated affair than the previous incarnation. The FUSE design had more brand identify, with Nike products and the firm’s buzzwords on display. The shop centred on a colourful multimedia display, FUSE was more identifiable as a Nike shop… at least until this retail chameleon changed into something else entirely.