The story of Nike Dunk SB Low Staple "NYC Pigeon" The shoe designed by Jeff Staple that has forever changed the way we perceive the sneaker game
It's wrong thinking that it was Jeff Staple with his Nike Dunk SB Low Staple "NYC Pigeon" that elevated sneakers to a cult. What happened in February 2005, however, is undoubtedly a turning point that transformed the passion for sneakers and collectors, from nerd fetishism to mainstream phenomenon, absorbed even outside the close circle of fans. Pigeon has the merit of having created a ferment that gave birth to the phenomenon of camp out and to the race for the limited edition, the definition of Hype even before this word had such a clear meaning.
But let's start from the beginning, who is Jeff Staple? How did a shoe with a so annoying and universally hated animal to be the origin of the resell game?
Machete, knives and thug
The design created by the Reed Space wanted to combine the world of skateboarding and the soul of New York City in a single item. Jeff and his team decided that nothing like pigeons would best represent the Big Apple vibe, a photograph of everyday life that doesn't connect to the city if you don't actually live there.
The colorway was inspired by the colors of the bird: three different grays, black and white areas (the swoosh), orange sole like the legs and upper in nubuck, to recreate the softness of the feathers.
The shoe was the last released of the super limited series "City Pack": jusr 150 pairs were made, 30 for each of the 5 shops in NYC (Rival, Supreme, Recon, KCDC and Reed Space).
However, only in Jeff's shop in Manhattan, the sneakers were numbered which made the model even more exclusive and generated what happened then the following days.
Staple noticed that something big was about to happen when he left work, the night before the drop, when a dozen were already camping at the 151 Orchard Street.
The next day there were 150 people and the police was helping a 140-kilo bouncer to contain the crowd, wilding to buy the Nike Dunk SB at a retail price of $300.
The NYPD arrested about twenty people, including the Lower East Side thugs, lurking on street corners ready to rob the lucky ones who managed to get the Pigeons, let them out in advance from the back of the store and escorted by police to taxis and vehicles.
However, the moment that cemented the notoriety of the Dunk to mainstream recognition is February 23, 2005, the day after the release.
The New York Post headlined "Sneaker frenzy" on the front page, recognizing the phenomenon generated by the Pigeons as a force and relevance never attributed to any sneaker. On the seventh page of the tabloid, Rachel Sklar and Leonard Greene reported the first statements of Nico Reyes - Reed store manager - and the fact that sneaker had already reached a value above 1000$ on Ebay, that was still in its early days. The story shook Nike, especially since knives, machetes and baseball bats were found outside the store. Someone thought that everything had been orchestrated from the beginning by Jeff, a thesis that was reported even in the following days always on the New York Post.
