Dunk Delirium: How a Nike Classic Became the Hottest Trainer in the World… Again
Along with dark web fentanyl, the Loch Ness Monster, and an honest man, it can be hard to find a pair of Nike Dunks in this current climate. Thanks to collaborations with modern cultural powerhouses like Off-White, Travis Scott, and... Ben & Jerry’s, and a sustained period beneath the hype spotlight that has reached an apparent apotheosis, the £90 Nike classic has become a hot, and scarce, commodity. Dunks go for hundreds, and sometimes even thousands, on resale platforms such as StockX — causing would-be buyers to have very public meltdowns on social media when a raffle doesn’t go their way.
“There are so many potent stories all related to this one style of shoe,” said Virgil Abloh before the release of his Off-White Dunk in December 2019, “many of which pre-date the exploding street culture scene of now.”
“The Dunk is a shoe that’s not just your average inanimate object.”
View this post on Instagram>p>pThe year is 1985, The Goonies is in cinemas, Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush is ringing through the airwaves and a gangly 21-year-old Michael Jordan is coming off the back of a breakout rookie season with the Chicago Bulls while wearing the Nike Air Jordan 1, an instant hit that sends waves through the nascent streetwear scene and the Nike C-Suite. Nike needs to compound its success and they need to do it quickly. Using the Air Jordan 1 as a template, Peter Moore – who also designed the Jordan signature – creates a basketball shoe with a thin, flat sole (this will be important later on) with prominent branding that comes in the vibrant colors of America’s 12 leading basketball college programs; the focus is on marketing the shoe to basketball players and wannabe athletes. It works. Moore, and Nike, have done it again.>p>p>p
Photo by Nike.>p>p“Dunk to me is a style that transcends style, aesthetic, and look,” says James Trivunovic, a former head of buying at Size? and sportswear at END Clothing, now with Manchester’s The Hip Store. “It can be worn so eclectically and has such a rich history across so many old/nostalgic colorways that it has created a collecting culture on the style again. People spending hundreds of pounds on old and OG colorways.”>p“The Dunk has had a huge resurgence in the last 12 months because of the thirst for nostalgia and cleaner sneaker silhouettes from a new consumer, as well as the likes of social media heavyweights such as Travis Scott, Virgil Abloh, and Ambush doing their own takes on the style,” adds Trivunovic. “I think Nike have tried to protect the Dunk as one of their true icons and have seen demand grow very quickly. Keeping the numbers low in the market and creating hype has made the shoe even harder to obtain.”>p>p
Photo by Ben & Jerry's/ Nike.
>p>p>pBy creating a shoe that, by design, worked across so many different colorways, Nike had laid down the foundations for the modern collaboration format. Spike Lee became an early adopter and the brand created special yellow and black editions for Wu-Tang Clan. By the early Nineties it had been repurposed as a skate shoe in the New York scene, where its flat, thin sole (remember how important that was?) and heavy-duty build made it a perfect crossover trainer. In 2001 Nike collaborated with Stüssy, the first time it had partnered with a clothing company, creating a ‘hype’ moment that was a precursor to the raffle, queue, Palace, Abloh, and Supreme fire extinguisher frenzy of modern day streetwear culture. Proving the shoe's long-standing versatility and appeal as a wet dream for collaborators, last year Nike partnered with names, brands, and bands as eclectic as Cactus Plant Flea Market, The Grateful Dead, and the aforementioned Ben & Jerry's. Fancy a pair of 'Chunky Dunkys'? That will be around £1,500 on StockX, please.>p“The global sneaker resale market is experiencing massive growth — with an anticipated market size of over $30 billion by 2030 — and we’ve seen that first-hand on StockX,” says Jesse Einhorn, Senior Economist at the site. “Nike Dunks have been one of the fastest-growing segments of our marketplace. In addition to their world-class collaborations and storytelling, Nike Dunks have also proven to have incredible value. These sneakers are highly coveted, and over the past 30 days, the average SB Dunk has sold for 375% more than their average retail price. However, like all markets, it ultimately comes down to supply and demand — if a product has a community of collectors and an active market, trade will flourish.”>p>pAn advert for the original Nike SB Dunk>p
>pAnother milestone in the convoluted Dunk timeline – and a constant point of contention and conversation amongst men who spend the same amount of money as a Big Holiday on trainers – is the year 2002 and the launch of Nike's SB imprint. This is when they officially stepped into the world of skateboarding, having tried to cater to the sport with shoes like the fairly ill-named ‘Choad’. Aware of the skate world’s unofficial acceptance of the Dunk, a shoe that was, at the time, cheap, easy to come by and durable, Trojan horse attempts were made by the Swoosh to capitalize on the scene, with Dunks that featured updated materials and designs, padded tongues and 3M reflective taping. Now Nike wanted to make it official. “It [was] everything a skater could want, Kevin Imamura, global footwear R&D for Nike SB, said of the Dunk to Mr Porter. “Grip, comfort, protection, durability, and last but not least, it looked incredible. It literally spoke to skaters.”>p>p>p>pHaving convinced independent skate shops that they weren’t the devil (or at least if they were, they came dressed in cool clothes), Nike released just one shoe style to officially mark its foray into a sport that had so-far resisted official conglomerate branding: the Dunk SB. This new skate-focused Dunk used Zoom air in the sole for extra cushioning, perfect for when you nail a massive ollie (am I right, skaters!). It also had terry-toweling at the top of the insole and a thick, padded tongue, which had already been deployed in the unofficial pre-millennium, skate-centered versions, including the cult Dunk Low Pro B and CO.JP styles.>p>pThe ’Paris’ Dunk Low Pro SB, the most expensive shoe ever sold on StockX>p
