story

"What's up everybody? This is Deon Point, Head of Footwear Collaborations for Concepts, and we are all here at the Nike SB Skate Park in Portland, Oregon. My name's Ocea. I'm the Collaborations Footwear Developer..."

"...for Nike SB. My name is Mau Rosillo. I am the Senior Color Designer for Nike SB. The beginning of our partnership started with Concepts being one of the first retailers across the globe to carry the SB line. Someone came up with the idea to do a lobster and kind of batted that back and forth for a while."

"We did some fine-tuning, touched it up a bit, and finally got approval on that. Landed in May of 2008. So the very first lobster Dunk, again, I think it was just based on what people knew Boston for. So yeah, it's like, "Okay, Boston, cool, let's do a lobster."..."

"But how do you do it? Little unique details like adding the picnic print, butter laces and things like that, and then how we packaged it. We did lobster bags, heavy duty cardboard ones. So yeah, it was fun. I mean, it was definitely something that set the tone."

"And then we followed back up with Blue and we came up with this story of toxic lobsters taking over Boston and signs posted all throughout Boston. So much to the point that the city called us and they were going to fine us because people were scared to go to the beach."

"I mean, this is legit stuff that I'm telling you, it's not fake. With this one in particular, I think we dove a little deeper into the backstory and as to why. So focusing on not just luxury, not just skate, but how art's infused in our world now."

"So for the design process on the 'Orange Lobster', kind of like walk in the park to be honest with you. The first things that we want to look at was underlays, overlays, speckles, execution on the Swoosh, on both colors and materials. Anytime we can dig into DNA and reference things, it just makes it so much smoother."

"But for those who don't know, DNA stands for Department of Nike Archives. So DNA is super useful and helpful because we actually have the models in hand. So we're able to see the colors, materials, all defined details throughout the uppers of the shoe. I think the number one thing that I love about the 'Orange Lobster'..."

"...is how white plays a big part on it. Breaking up with the tongue, double Swoosh, little accents throughout the top cloth as well as the Nike in the back. And for me, it's all about making sure that the details are right. So everything is obsessed [over] because we want to honor the heritage."

"We're looking at everything from the opacity of the lining to the density of the dots. Everything is gone over with a fine tooth comb, especially when you have something as iconic as this. Mau and the design crew..."

"...back at WHQ are the absolute masters of nailing all these details and doing the research and DNA and getting everything just right. People have all types of theories as to why we do colors, why they're not in order."

"The rubber band color or something? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's definitely a hot topic. So the bands being black, being that it was our 25th anniversary, we always go back and forth through, '"What are we going to do for laces? What are we going to do for bands?" So I was thinking silver, that's obviously logical."

"Lo and behold, that sparked a whole conversation and debate with both of our groups of, "Wait, I thought these bands are going to be silver." And I think there's another color even. It's turquoise, yeah. Turquoise it was going to be, because that's what the orange lobsters have when it got caught."

"Everybody will see what the colors that we actually picked. But yeah, they will have black bands too now, so. What gets me super hyped and excited is what the future holds. What looks like in a year from now, 5 years from now, 10 years from now."

"Because this is how it looked like in early 2000 to where we at now, man. Well said. When I think about the last 25 years of Concepts, I feel it went by entirely too fast. Hoping we could see another 25, and..."

"...I think with projects like this, I have no doubt that we'll get there with these. This was the Behind the Design featuring Concepts x Nike SB 'Orange Lobster'. I'm Deon. I'm Mau. I'm Ocea. Thank you for watching."

Behind the Design: SB Dunk Low x Concepts 'Orange Lobster'