In collaboration with Nike China’s design team, we’ve created a special edition shoebox to celebrate Nike’s new global range for Liu Xiang, the LX collection. The range was launched late last month in Shanghai, Liu’s hometown.

Liu is the first Chinese athlete to achieve the “triple crown”: world record holder, world champion, and Olympic gold medalist. And now he’s also the first track and field athlete to have an exclusive global Nike sportswear range.

Taking inspiration from bamboo, which represents resilience and gracefulness in Chinese culture, we designed a bamboo box that tells the story of Liu’s much anticipated return from injury. There are only 86 boxes in the world, symbolising Liu’s chase for the 110m hurdles world record of 12.86 seconds.