In 2016, sportswear manufacturer
Nike
and fashion designer
Virgil Abloh joined forces
to create a sneaker collection
celebrating 10 of the Oregon-based company’s most iconic shoes. With their project The Ten—which reimagined icons like
Air Jordan 1
,
Air Max 90
Air Force 1
, and
Air Presto
, among others—they reinvigorated sneaker culture.
Virgil Abloh’s designs offer
deep insights into engineering ingenuity
and burst with cultural cachet. Drawing on the genius of the original shoe using lettering, ironic labels, collage, and sculpting techniques, Abloh played with language and sculptural elements to construct new meaning. Inspired by the wit of Dadaism, architectural theory, and avant-garde happenings, he analyzed what makes each shoe iconic and deconstructed it into an
artistic assemblage
, making
each shoe into a piece of industrial design, a readymade sculpture, and a wearable all at once
.
ICONS
traces Abloh’s investigative, creative process through documentation of the
prototypes
original text messages
from Abloh to Nike designers, and
treasures from the Nike archives
. We find Swooshes sliced away from Air Jordans and reapplied with tape or thread, Abloh’s typical text fragments in quotation marks on Air Force 1, and All Stars cut into pieces. We take a
look behind the scenes
and witness Abloh’s DIY approach, which gave each model in the
Off-WhiteTM c/o Nike collection
its own unique touch. His deconstructive vocabulary is reflected in the
Swiss binding, which showcases an open spine
and discloses the production of the book.
The book documents Abloh’s cooperative way of working and reaffirms the power of print. For its design Nike and Abloh partnered with the acclaimed
London-based design studio Zak Group
. Together they conceived a two-part compendium, equal parts catalog and conceptual toolbox. The first part of the book presents a
visual culture of sneakers
while a lexicon in the second part defines the
key people, places, objects, ideas, materials, and scenes from which the project grew
. Texts by Nike’s
Nicholas Schonberger
, writer
Troy Patterson
, curator and historian
Glenn Adamson
Virgil Abloh
himself frame the collaborative work within fashion and design history. A foreword by
Hiroshi Fujiwara
places the project within the historical continuum of Nike collaborators.