Hardcover, Swiss bound, 25.5 x 29.7 cm, 2.33 kg, 352 pages
Nike and Virgil Abloh have propelled sneaker culture forward with their collaborative project, The Ten, which analyzes, dissects, and reimagines 10 iconic sneakers, including the Air Jordan 1 and Air Presto. Delve into Abloh’s creative engineering and research: each shoe is a piece of industrial design, a readymade sculpture, and a wearable garment, all at once.
In 2016, sportswear manufacturer Nike and fashion designer Virgil Abloh joined forces to create a collection of sneakers that paid tribute to 10 of the Oregon-based company’s most iconic models. With their project The Ten, which reinvented icons such as the Air Jordan 1, Air Max 90, Air Force 1, and Air Presto, among others, they revitalized sneaker culture.
Virgil Abloh’s designs showcase the creativity of engineering and exude cultural prestige. Abloh recaptured the essence of the original designs through the use of typography, ironic labels, collages, and sculptural techniques, and played with language and sculptural elements to construct new meanings. Drawing inspiration from Dadaist attitudes, architectural theory, and avant-garde happenings, he analyzed what makes each shoe iconic and deconstructed it into an artistic assemblage to transform it into a piece of industrial design, a readymade sculpture, and a wearable garment, all at once.
ICONS traces Abloh’s creative and research process through documentation of prototypes, Abloh’s original text messages to Nike designers, and exclusive material from Nike’s archives. We find the Nike logo cut from Air Jordans and reused with tape or thread, Abloh’s typical text fragments in quotation marks on the Air Force 1 and chopped-up All Stars. We get a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes work and witness Abloh’s artisanal approach, which gave each model in the Off-WhiteTM c/o Nike collection a unique touch. His deconstructive vocabulary is reflected in the Swiss binding, which shows the open spine and reveals the book’s production.
The book documents Abloh’s cooperative approach to work and reaffirms the power of print. For its design, Nike and Abloh partnered with the acclaimed London-based studio Zak Group. Together they conceived a two-part compendium, a catalog, and a conceptual toolbox. The first part of the book showcases the visual culture of sneakers, while the second offers a glossary introducing the key people, places, objects, ideas, materials, and scenes that made the project possible. Texts by Nike’s Nicholas Schonberger, writer Troy Patterson, curator and art historian Glenn Adamson, and Virgil Abloh himself frame this collaborative work within the history of fashion and design. The foreword by Hiroshi Fujiwara situates the project within the endless history of Nike collaborations.
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