"Retro" and "future" are words at the opposite ends of the time scale. Yet the two must collaborate, for without the one you could not have the other. Nothing could be "retro" without a future from which to look back on it. And much of what was once considered to be looking towards the future ended up becoming retro!
Both words carry tremendous significance where the design world is concerned. "Retro" and "futuristic" designs fuel much of today's creative output. And for all their apparent symbiosis, they require very different thinking paths. You have to have a highly developed sense of curiosity and imagination to dream up something that has never existed before. On the other hand, you have to have a huge passion for a certain brand or era to be driven to spend the enormous amount of time needed to research extinct products in the minutest detail.
The key to knowing everything about a certain product and the creative story behind it is to be well acquainted with the company's background. To help our readers, and especially the designers among them, to do this, we are introducing with this issue a new regular column called "The Company". It will encompass interviews and images showcasing the inner structure and function of the company - allowing you see both its retro and its future growth. We kick off with one of the world's best-known brands: Nike.
In just 30 years, Nike has become the largest sport and fitness company in the world and, through different partner companies, it has extended its reach well beyond the sports arena. It all started in 1947: before there was Nike, there was Bill Bowerman, Nike's future co-founder. And before Bowerman there was Bill Hayward, the first track director at the University of Oregon. Hayward led Oregon athletics from 1904 to 1947. Named in his honor, the University's historic track-and-field venue has hosted three Olympic Trails, and a variety of National NCAA and Masters championships. A claim could be made that Hayward Field was Nike's unofficial birthplace.
Both words carry tremendous significance where the design world is concerned. "Retro" and "futuristic" designs fuel much of today's creative output. And for all their apparent symbiosis, they require very different thinking paths. You have to have a highly developed sense of curiosity and imagination to dream up something that has never existed before. On the other hand, you have to have a huge passion for a certain brand or era to be driven to spend the enormous amount of time needed to research extinct products in the minutest detail.
The key to knowing everything about a certain product and the creative story behind it is to be well acquainted with the company's background. To help our readers, and especially the designers among them, to do this, we are introducing with this issue a new regular column called "The Company". It will encompass interviews and images showcasing the inner structure and function of the company - allowing you see both its retro and its future growth. We kick off with one of the world's best-known brands: Nike.
In just 30 years, Nike has become the largest sport and fitness company in the world and, through different partner companies, it has extended its reach well beyond the sports arena. It all started in 1947: before there was Nike, there was Bill Bowerman, Nike's future co-founder. And before Bowerman there was Bill Hayward, the first track director at the University of Oregon. Hayward led Oregon athletics from 1904 to 1947. Named in his honor, the University's historic track-and-field venue has hosted three Olympic Trails, and a variety of National NCAA and Masters championships. A claim could be made that Hayward Field was Nike's unofficial birthplace.
In 1948, Bill Bowerman - Olympian, Olympic coach, innovator and inspirational mentor - took over as head track coach at the University of Oregon, a post he held until 1973. In 1957, the future co-founders of Nike met at the University of Oregon in Eugene, America's running citadel. Thus began the relationship between Bowerman, already one of the top US track coaches, and Phil Knight, a middle-distance runner on Bowerman's track team. In 1962, Knight produced a Stanford University research paper that asserted that low-priced, high-performance, well-merchandised exports from Japan could replace Germany's domination of the US athletic-shoe industry.
After receiving his MBA, Knight went on a world tour. Stopping in Japan, he contacted the Onitsuka Tiger company, manufacturers of quality athletic shoes, and convinced it of the great marketing opportunities for its product in the US. Put on the spot, he had to pretend that he already had a company of his own - so he came up with the name Blue Ribbon Sports, which was to be the forerunner of Nike.
After the first Tiger shoes were made – a mere 200 pairs – the future co-founder of Nike predicted a huge growth in sales of sports wear. In 1970, Bowerman began experimenting with rubber spikes by pouring a liquid-rubber compound into his wife's waffle iron, creating a sole that forever changed the design of running shoes. One year later, one of the most recognized symbols in the world - the Swoosh - was created by a graphic-design student named Carolyn Davidson, whom Phil Knight had met at Portland State University.
In the same year, Nike's first employee made his most enduring contribution to the company. While sleeping, he dreamed of Nike, the Greek the greek goddess of victory — thus coming up with the company's new name. Since then, Nike has practiced what it preached — that if you have a body, you are an athlete, from the run-for-fun amateur to Olympic medalists.
Listing all the company's many achievements over these years would not only be a dull and lengthy exercise, but it would fail to give a true flavor of what all those products actually meant, especially to the people who bought them. So a "retro revolution" was called for – and Bob Smith was clearly the man to lead it. Although hailing from Los Angeles, Smith started out as a freelance designer in Portland, Oregon, working for the likes of Wieden+Kennedy, Adidas, Columbia Sportswear, and Avia. He dropped his portfolio with Nike's Creative Director of Apparel one day has been working for them ever since.Smith, quickly realized that Nike didn't have a reputation as quality activewear company outside the industry. So he started collecting popular street brands to see if he couldn't find out what made them tick. Even when he incorporated some of the most appealing features, the results still failed to take off commercially. So in the Autumn of 2000, Amanda Briggs brought in Karen and James Bond of now-closed K-Bond to Nike to brainstorm with a few designers as to how to get some of these off-line projects to retail successfully.
This was the beginning of Nike’s White Label. Smith had always wanted to do something involving vintage reissue Nike apparel — at a time when the firm was much better known for its technically advanced performance pieces. Although the White Label group was pursuing some projects along these lines, Smith felt that there should be a niche for some authentic product stories conceptualized around Nike's history as an all-American company.
To create a complete heritage-inspired line, Smith first needed to find all the hand-drawn line art for apparel concepts and use them as a basis to build a full-blown merchandise concept room, samples and all; a place that people could walk into and be completely immersed in a fully realized vision of a vintage Nike retail offering, all the way down to the shoe boxes and posters on the wall.
Smith sought help from Campus Display Manager Rick Shannon, who had access to the Nike Archive. He supplied Smith with actual vintage apparel and footwear, and if they couldn't find any examples of the originals, the re-created them using old catalogues and videotapes for references. Smith next challenge was where to place these stores. He decided to start with what had been Nike's first Athletic Department store, built in the early 1970s in Oregon. Bob did a complete makeover of the manager's office, using fake wood paneling and painted pegboard from the Home Depot, picking up old office furniture from around town and a few other props to complete the story. Thus Nike's first Athletic Department, full of actual vintage apparel, shoeboxes, and posters, was born.
After more than a year of fits and starts, Smith together with key White Label personnel Mindy Grossman (Global Apparel VP), Jason Phillips (Senior Apparel Designer) and Chris Nicola (US Business Director), finally launched the first re-issue collection in the spring of 2004, to huge acclaim. The line continues to grow and evolve, but the group tries to stay true to the story-telling roots of where the firm came from. Thus each piece gets its own proprietary hangtag, which talks about the significance of the individual garment or graphic.
Whenever possible, individuals connected to the stories are interviewed to draw out unique insights - from Phil Knight (co-founder of Blue Ribbon, which will be featured in the next issue of "The Company") to Jeff Johnson (former track competitor of Phil Knight who later opened the first Blue Ribbon Sports retail outlet in Santa Monica) to Alberto Salazar. With the continuous growth of White Label over the last six months, a new General Manager and Creative Director from Europe have been brought in. Every White Label garment will become a souvenir of everyone's knowledge of the company. White Label is not just throwing a pile of retro-looking stuff out into the world; rather it is hoping that the consumer will find it not only interesting but meaningful.
In the DVD that comes with this issue of IdN, we include an exclusive live interview with Bob Smith, in which he gives a personal introduction to White Label, explaining the story behind each of its products. Don't miss it!
