SNKRS: THE STORY OF DUNK - **FULL DOCUMENTARY**

in the history of silhouettes the dunk is a forgotten step child that winds up being great athletes skaters punks hip-hop kids the dunk was this democratic shoot the dunk has sort of gone away come back gone away come back the shooters actually live four different lives and one amazing journey [Music] [Applause] the mid-80s was the last golden era of sports it had to set the stage for college basketball to be the most important form of college athletics and the final four became one of the biggest sporting events in america the scene is the 1985 mcaa basketball championships it was the first time for the company having all four schools playing the afternoon second semi-final game pits the nation's two top-ranked teams against each other st johns and georgetown that game featured 11 future nba players stars like chris mullen and patrick ewing i was a fan of patrick ewing before he even got to the nba georgetown was an all-black team and you rarely saw a black coach i think that captivated all of america we all watched the final four in our living rooms but in the arena it was electric there's nothing like young energy the way that they hate their faces and go crazy in the stands there were nike executives in the building they were like how can you roll that team mentality that crew mentality in the sneakers they took what was happening in the stadiums and then they took what was happening in their shoes and then they put two records together and did a remix two weeks before the launch nike was literally pulling shoes off the production line to make changes but in all that chaos the dunk was blowing the dunk the most exciting shot in basketball it basically is a frankenstein of three of the best basketball shoes that nike had at the time the legend the terminator and the jordan 1. most of the shoes back in the 80s were white they were very simplistic the dunk was one of the first shoes the color block where you had big panels of the shoes that were blocked off in signature colors of the school that they represented the result is a campaign called be true to your school [Music] it featured apparel and dunks for 12 different schools i'm pretty sure i ripped out that ad out of sports illustrated or something and like put it on my bedroom wall the only way that i could come close to these heroes that i was looking up to was getting the shoes on their feet i want to save the money i can spend for back to school for the year for my dunks wasn't just basketball players out there hooping and dunks it was kids that were going to games that wanted dunks because that was their school be true to your school went beyond just the original schools i mean take me for instance i was at xavier university in new orleans louisiana our school colors were gold and black there wasn't a dunk for our school we were a small naia school but that iowa dunk it wasn't iowa dunks to us it was xavier we felt like you had a shoe that was your own the dunk didn't get the full justice that it deserved because nike had this huge blockbuster on their hand with the air jordan one it totally eclipsed what the dunk could have been in a concentrated way the jordan shoes dominate the market and this simpler utilitarian dunk shoe you kind of forget about it for a while [Music] the dunk disappeared it was like i was gone so what like next jordan 2 jordan 3 jordan 4. you would go hunt out at whatever bargain stores they were in the bargain basement in a bin there's a lot of similarities in what basketball players and what skateboarders need flatter soles grip they were made of leather they looked like jordans all kids that were skating in new york were like this is it and that was the rebirth of the dunk it was a skateboarding shoot [Music] in the early 90s new york city was this convergence of all these different subcultures that were wearing the dust these different outsiders that are shunned by society but they find solace with each other having grown up in new york and being part of the hip-hop scene skateboarding hardcore and punk rock it was just this kind of all-encompassing community the dunk is kind of this canvas that they can all use in a different way back in the day i remember you can go into foot locker and buy them for like 30 bucks we would go to modell's they were in the bargain basement skaters were like this is it as a skateboarder the duck is functional because it's got a flat sole the rubber on the sole grips perfectly this shoe is pretty thin so you can feel your board and it just looks good you get to the mid to late 90s every single skate shoe company was making a shoe that looked like the dunk they would try to mimic it but it would be very gimmicky nike being the sports innovation company they're going to approach skateboarding the same way that they do anything else which is how can we come up with something new that's going to check every single box that any skateboarder could possibly want and unfortunately there was a couple problems any big company coming in to a subculture absolutely there was some mistrust industry is solely built by skateboarders so it's very like protective of itself don't let any outsiders in don't let it get taken over by corporations [Music] there was doubt against them in that like super biased community of skateboarders skippers love to hate and dude they had a they had a shoe called the chode chode the chode i think nike could do better the shoes were overbuilt skaters were like you don't get us so we're not going to drink the kool-aid the activity of skateboarding went dark for years at nike [Music] this was at the same time that on the west coast there was a foot action and they requested to do patent leather dunks the guy that managed dunks for the west coast listened to them and eventually he also started doing dunks in colors other than the original essentially running rogue nike footwear sales reps for the big box stores were like what the hell are you guys doing this is our shoe the people that were making the crazy colored shoes were like you guys can keep the regular dunk and we're gonna do this other version of the shoe and that's how the dunk pro b is more i went over to tokyo it was 99 and i see this dunk and the dunks different than the dunks i'm used to crazy colors crazy fabrics it completely ties into the nature of skateboarding which is creativity and customization skateboarding isn't like a traditional sport where you wear a uniform and everybody looks the same the tricks you do how you look doing them what you're wearing it's a sport of self-expression these dunks were thicker so they had more padding and they had a more padded tongue the pro-b with the fat tongue that whole innovation goes back to aliasha because aleasho being a lifelong skateboarder basically trying to enhance the performance element of what this shoe could be so we were having a conversation about doing an alphanumeric nike collaboration i was like let's do a dunk because we used to skate in those all the time it was good we're on top of the world [Music] when a guy by the name of sandy bodecker finds out that her former skateboarders are interested in dunks instantly his ears prick up in 2001 i'm working for a skate company in new york city and one day this guy sandy bodecker just popped up in the elevator and just introduced himself and he was just like hey i'm sandy from nike we had like bleach blonde hair matte bracelets i think he even had like a rat tail he was going into skate retail getting feedback from shop owners and trying to gain as much knowledge as he could at first i was a little surprised that nike was looking at the skate community to support but like they really just did it right sandy did a really good job of listening to skateboarders sandy he said oh skaters like the dunk why don't we just give them those and at that point sandy instantly knows what it takes to launch nike skateboarding the first sb's that came out were the colors by series which was basically the reese the geno richie and danny supa these aren't the biggest names in skateboarding but these guys were the skater's skater when i saw those first four dunks that those guys had done they were all pretty mind-blowing you've got a shoe that no longer looks like a basketball shoe it's got this fat tongue the zoom airbag in the sockliner it's got colors that are off the wall a lot of skaters were sponsored by other brands would take the sockliner put them in their shoes and skate them that's where nike had the real advantage because they came in the game already with so much technology i was like damn i wish i could skate in those back out of different shoe sponsors and i had such fomo those shoes essentially launched the brand [Music] nike rolled out the dunk by relationship building with skate shops if you were a skateboarder the backbone of your community was the skate shop when i started working for nike in 2002 the thinking behind the distribution was skate shops only and it took some time for it to start to work they like let a bunch of skaters kind of run a part of nike nike was very selective on what shops were going to be carrying dunks it came down to one simple principle supporting their local scene and if they did in an authentic way then we were down to do business with them the immediate reaction was mixed i think a lot of them out of respect of what we were doing and the skaters we had involved were willing to partner with us and try and then there were a lot of stores that would call with hey i put a bunch of skateboards on the wall sell me nikes and we're like absolutely not it's not real if you know darren he can kind of shut you down pretty quick what you did like didn't want to talk to us they were just starting their store so are they established are they going to be in business the checklist of the stuff you have to do for the job we had nike was like you and 12 other skate shops are the only people in the world that are going to be getting the dunk the distribution was very selective so it gave us an opportunity to stand out and compete against the bigger shops the dunk is really special and you guys are the only ones that have it that other store down the street that said you guys wouldn't last they're never gonna have it the shops were our social media skaters trusted them and they helped put that shoe out in front [Music] skateboarding was beginning to like peak as an industry it was being manipulated a little bit like just getting too big for its own good the dunk kind of helped skateboard and get back to its roots when i first saw that first four dunks and the group of guys they chose to put on the team i felt like yeah they were coming correct i was like man this is actually pretty cool they're not just trying to come into the industry to take from it but they also want to add to it and i think that they were treating us like real professional athletes and like listening to skaters on product input i had a hand in helping modify the dunk to make it a bit more skateable i wanted to slim down the tongue nike was actually interested in working with me when nike came knocking i didn't even realize i could dream that big for skateboarding here i am a little mexican kid from the san fernando valley with my own signature shoe this niche shoe it now has a vehicle which is skateboarding attached to it which legitimizes the whole thing and at the time i remember a couple people telling me why are you skating in those you shouldn't be scared of them that's when you started to notice it was much more than a skate shoe [Music] these dunks were creating this phenomenon and we had other customers come in that weren't necessarily skateboarders also like new york area code's calling you people started calling trying to get a hold of us and finding out my employees names and getting gifts and all sorts of crazy stuff we had kids flying in from other states seeing those kids spend six days just outside camping that was definitely a wake-up moment for us i'd never experienced anything like this before people were ready for the next thing and collaborations is what was the next thing [Music] by the early 2000s nike understood that the future was collaborations and the dunk is a blank canvas when you have all these different people that touch it and put a story to it and that becomes the real transformation for the dunk [Music] the 2002 supreme dunk low that set [Music] [Music] the supreme was solidifying that market for store collaborations the supreme brand used to be sold out of unions which is on the la brea corridor which is this community of streetwear brands union stuce and undefeated we all got offered the opportunity to do the corpse pad the clerk's pack was collaborations in three cities la london and san francisco nike was giving the opportunity to people who actually interacts with the customer they designed the donk the manager of all these different shops get to take a shoe and do our thing to it i wanted something that was a good representation of san francisco that had some history based in it so i got to thinking about alcatraz we wanted to get black and white which was classic prison colors if you had carp launch opportunity to do whatever you wanted to this shoe what would you do with it i was coming from this very sample collage way of making records and i wanted to kind of apply that idea to the sneaker and so the shoe is the artwork from that record created by futura it's quite a collage of elements you know you've got embroidery the paintings is it's been done as a negative of the original artwork [Music] someone explained [Music] [Music] the paris dunk and city pack were awesome there was these myths of other sneakers out there dropping in the world a lot of nike is very serious like professional sports but then you had this little thing that was more culture and like seeing how far we could push the edges which led to doing a lobster shoe [Music] when we started going through what boston meant to the world the lobster was the most obvious answer we brought it to life added the picnic print added the metallic splatter we knew that sb had told great stories so we wanted to kind of follow along we said that these blue lobsters were attacking the coast they were eating dogs and ripping apart well that guy totally just went in the water oh he was pulled in when you look at the time and the effort that goes into the packaging and the storytelling it's just something that i've never seen before with sb we always were allowed to have fun partnering with creatives artists shop kids people that were very much in tune to the creative side of streetwear that becomes the modern day sneaker culture the dunk through kerosene on street wear and help to make it more commercial and when there's limited supply and lots of demand people would get kind of crazy [Music] you can't really understand where the dunk should be going until you understand where the dunk came from the general public were not that into dunks it was the connoisseurs it was the trendsetters personally [Music] most of it at the beginning was parallel buying from other countries and regions you have this very small network of shops trading with each other because you can only get certain shoes in certain countries i was buying two 300 pairs of them and sending them to japan le japonesque [Music] the next big thing was a little program called codot jp which was the domain name for nike japan and they would partner with key influencers throughout japan and do special color ways for them and make 24 pairs 12 pairs and exclusively sell them in japan the most famous kodak jp is the biotech and that one was pig suede each panel of the shoe was a different color the biotech people started realizing individually the colors are so good they actually really work together really well those shoes were instant hits before undefeated there was union eddie cruz is still like working there he had the brazil dunk and i was like how do you have these he tells me he brought them back from japan i was like these will be valuable which made me also want to start collecting more i think the japanese perfected collector culture understanding what the value of what shoes meant whether in the moment or even long term it was the information highway as it pertained to sneakers rumors leaked photos you literally were just trying to make connections so you could trade and get access to shoes and bragging rights dunks are a luxury aren't they they are so alluric because they're not easy to catch it was like what 32 pairs of the wu tangs that were made it was just like chasing bigfoot the dunk high supremes so loud now that like i don't want to wear it i don't want to give it away so it just kind of sits there in no man's land with grails i usually always think of like the ones i had more of an emotional connection to mf doom was amazing this whole team was playing the album throughout the whole release it was just a great moment [Music] [Music] fair [Music] i might want to pass them down to my son because he sees some kicks that i have he's like yo dad i like those and i hold him down for him cause everything always comes back full circle with the modern day shoes that we've done with the grateful dead ben and jerry's and travis scott now have made up popular culture it's stunk madness [Music] the travis scott beautiful shoe there isn't any other shoe that has like made its mark in all these different worlds travis scott definitely brought new life and a new light to the dunk with the new generation if you're doing an sb and a dunk and he's a superstar that's a formula that's going to make a lot of hype around him you know rock them for a little bit then skate them i can get two i can skate one and you can wear it into the ground or you can save it for something special you can make it into whatever you want the dunk can unite people who don't necessarily look alike who don't come from the same neighborhoods but have a love for the same thing and maybe we could find some type of kinship through that i think that was one of the things that brought all of us together is always being able to team up to do something we all leaders basically the strength in numbers [Laughter] growing up in chicago we were just always freestyled music was the thing before people knew that we could rap we rapped and saved money we was one of the first groups to like knock down the neighborhood walls like we didn't care you was from the west side south side we were just like the same type of kids doing the same type of stuff joey used to skateboard and a big use of skateboard the sb's was like the sole fashion skating shoe that was one of the things that brought all of us together as kids you might notice that somebody got a pair of shoes that you wanted when y'all both got them like you bond over stuff like that and then you create the environment where you're creating the culture a lot of us are heavily involved in activism using our platform to just give back most of the south side and the west side are completely isolated areas where it's like ain't no type of wealth for miles it's literally kids with no shoes on their feet we gave away 15 000 pairs of shoes in the same community even after giving all the shoes out a couple people still kicked off their own shoes to give kids we build back up our communities to try and create equity in the city we got a bunch of initiatives after school programs summer camp we're going to be pulling together a bunch of learning activity books for kids that are affected by covid our crew is doing some things for the power of good see the dunk built relationships and crews came together to make an impact on that community which became a part of your identity we call ourselves ghetto gastro we're creative collective and we use food as a catalyst to tell stories it's really about empowering our neighborhoods that we grew up in i was first introduced to dunks as like an old school ogs in the hood that had fresh dunks the bronx is a global melting pot of different cultures but it's harder to find organic vegetables fruits but there's a liquor store in every corner bags of chips and soda high fructose corn syrup all of that leads to underlying health conditions and that creates a powder keg for when a pandemic comes well i like the vegetables la merada is a mutual aid kitchen here in the bronx owned and operated by undocumented immigrants the bronx was the hardest hit borough by the pandemic they were very passionate to use food as a weapon to help the community i've been working so hard some of the guys have holes in their shoes i was like all right we got to get them some kicks nike did send out kicks for the la murata sap to make sure that everybody was right on their feet we were able to get in la mirada work in and then get these meals out to the communities [Music] community is a big part of what we're about here at notre dame means ours not just jose and mine but our community i grew up on south side of chicago and i grew up in grand rapids michigan mj and i worked at haberdash and clicked one day he pulled out the michigan dunk and we just went off on like a two-hour conversation about dunks after like late nights of work we would hang out grab a beer and like work on our business plan for this shop that one day we would have the dunks why notre exists today and it brings great energy into the shop we have people lined up just to sign up for the chance to win these shoes we were like what can we do with all this energy for the community for the greater good we had releases where we had people bring in canned food used books that were then donated to chicago public schools i think it's only meaningful for us but also like our customers they see the impact that they're also able to be a part of this is our unit and the dunk is our shoot dunks represent unification of all these different ideas within skate street art design fashion and music into one crew it's been a mirror of youth culture the dunks really just bringing all these people together in a beautiful way if someone had it at school they were the weirdo like why the hell's this kid wearing a dunk but i guess what all wear does now the dunk is an idea that everybody in the family said it was going to fail because of that simple design any culture could connect to this shoe and have some type of ownership the hype might go up and down but the dunk it's forever legends never died [Music] you

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Length: 28min 7sec (1687 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 11 2021