story

"I'm Parra, Piet Parra, from Amsterdam. Artist, living and working here. When you get a request to do a new collab with Nike and Nike SB, you’re like 'What do I make?' "

"For Nike SB and for the Dunk, where I go to personally is 'What would I wear if I go skating myself?'. And then I try to find drawings that might fit with it."

"The concept of the new SB Dunk: it is based on landscapes and the previous pieces I did for the skateboarding kits."

"Coming from landscapes, nature elements… it's like soil, it's like earth, it's the floor, the ground you skate on."

"The difference between the kit graphic work and patterns, and the Dunk is that I zoomed in even more. I had to make sure you could kind of see which country it represented."

"For the Dunk, I didn't have to do that. I just zoomed in to the ground, and then added black outlines. I darkened the colors a bit so, it's not too crazy when you look down on your feet."

"It's a very difficult sport to learn, you know so, when you got it down, you feel a bit different. Like 'Hey, I put in all this work and I'm a skateboarder so, I’m going to wear something different.' "


"And this was very important – to make sure that there was not one thing they could wear, but there was multiple options. I don't think any other sports give you that option."

"Skateboarding is so different. We can't give them just one uniform."

"What makes a good skateboarding shoe… It's so personal. I used to skate early 2000-mid 2000, the Dunk came out and I skated that all the time."

"But all and all I think the Dunk snugs on your feet like a good glove. And it's durable. It’s a classic."

Behind the Design

Nike SB Dunk x Parra