Taschen - Virgil Abloh. Nike. ICONS

Designer sneakers
Nike and Virgil Abloh reinvent ten milestones in the history of sneakers

In 2016, Nike and designer Virgil Abloh joined forces to create a sneaker collection that celebrated ten of the most iconic shoe designs produced by the Oregon sportswear company. This project, called “The Ten”, revisits famous models such as Air Jordan 1, Air Max 90, Air Force 1 and Zoom Vaporfly, among others, giving new life to the culture of sneakers.

Virgil Abloh's new designs are masterful examples of ingenuity and bursting with class from every pore. Drawing on the genius of original shoes and exploiting lettering, ironic labels, collages and sculptural techniques, Abloh plays with different languages ??and plastic elements to build a new meaning. Inspired by the spirit of Dadaism, the theory of architecture and avant-garde performances, the designer analyzes the iconicity of each model and deconstructs it through an artistic assembly, transforming each shoe into a work of industrial design, a real one. ready to wear sculpture.

Icons retraces Abloh's creative and research process through documents relating to prototypes, exchanges of messages between Abloh and Nike designers, and treasures found in the Nike archives. The unmistakable Swoosh logo is detached from the Air Jordans and then reapplied using thread or tape, the All Stars are cut into pieces and the quotes in quotation marks typical of Abloh appear on the Air Force 1. Through a look behind the scenes, the book introduces readers to Abloh's do-it-yourself approach, capable of giving a unique touch to each model in the Off-WhiteTM c / o Nike collection.

This volume documents Abloh's cooperative approach and reaffirms the power of the press. For its design, Nike and Abloh collaborated with acclaimed London design studio Zak Group. Together they conceived a two-part compendium, halfway between catalog and conceptual resource. The first part of the book explores the visual culture of sneakers, while the second defines the protagonists, places, objects, ideas, materials and environments that have allowed the project to develop. Texts by Nike manager Nicholas Schonberger, writer Troy Patterson, historian and curator Glenn Adamson and Virgil Abloh himself frame this collaboration on the border between fashion and design history. An introduction by Hiroshi Fujiwara places the project within the history of Nike collaborations.

The author:
Born in Rockford, Illinois, Virgil Abloh is an eclectic creator who defies all classification. Active in the fields of art, design and culture, he is also dedicated to advocacy, mentoring and philanthropy projects. After earning a first degree in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he majored in architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago. Here, while attending a Bauhaus design course created by Mies van der Rohe, Abloh began to lay the foundations for his varied artistic practice. In the summer of 2019, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago presented an important exhibition dedicated to his work, which was one of the most visited in the history of the museum. Today, Abloh holds various positions, including that of creative director and founder of Off-White ™ ?, and that of artistic director of Men for Louis Vuitton.