How and why Nike has relaunched the Dunks An iconic silhouette brought back by Virgil Abloh and Travis Scott following an old business model

One of the adjectives that are most used to define the nature of fashion is 'cyclic': what alternates on the catwalks and on the street is only a recurring and periodic return of trends and obsessions of the past, revisited, updated, made significant again, with a cumbersome and interesting past that increases their value. 

After a first unsuccessful attempt, the recent return and renewed success of the Dunk, both of the sneakers of the Nike mainline and of the SB line, is perhaps the best example of how the Beaverton giant was able to revive the silhouette that most of all contributed to shaping the sneaker market as we know it today. To explain this disruptive success we have to bring into play three names, two very well-known, the last a little less. There is no doubt that Virgil Abloh and even more Travis Scott are the most influential architects of the return of the Dunk, but what Nike is doing is nothing more than using once again the strategy and marketing operations with which Sandy Bodecker made the Dunk (and the entire Nike SB line) a hit and a staple name as we know it today. 

Bodecker joined Nike in 1982 as a product tester and later became the mind behind the exponential growth of the Nike Soccer division in Europe before being appointed to the helm of Nike SB starting 2001. The genius intuition with which Bodecker launched the Dunk line and the sneaker started from the sport that most of all had proved akin to the silhouette, definitively turning what was a basketball shoe into the skate sneaker par excellence. The Dunk relaunch plan consisted of different elements, all complementary to its success. To the technical innovations and improvements on the shoe, aimed at making it more comfortable for skaters and able to grant more grip to the deck, there was the release of the sneakers of the four members of that original team (Gino Iannucci, Danny Supa, Reese Forbes and Richard Mulder), together with a "tight" distribution, making the releases exclusive to independent skate shops all over the world. This sales model proves to be winning for all the players involved: the link with the skate shops, first of all, ensured secure profits for them, credibility and respect in the culture for Nike, and a feeling of exclusivity for the final consumer. The period of regional releases began, with super limited editions different from continent to continent, making them instant grails, together with new iterations reworked by world-renowned artists, such as Piet Parra, Stash or Futura. More generally, collaborations became an important element in the history of the Dunk, not only with artists, writers and rappers, but also with the skate shops themselves, not necessarily well known to the general public, as Supreme was in the early years, or as CONCEPTS, Stussy, and Diamond Supply Co. - who unexpectedly created one of the most beloved and sought after Dunks of all time, the Tiffany. The climax of the success and fame of the Dunk was reached in 2005, with the (in)famous release of the Nike Dunk "NYC Pigeon" by Jeff Staple, the release that triggered that sneaker frenzy that we know today, kicking off the proliferation of sneakers magazines, campouts, meet-ups, communities and groups of enthusiasts, and above all giving a strong boost to the growth of the secondary market. After reaching its peak, a slow decline began, which was perhaps more of a settling of the SB line in general and the Dunk in particular, with great relief and a certain joy of the OG skaters and collectors. 

The release of this Dunk was the apotheosis of Brodecker's business model since the sneaker was not available on SNKRS, as it usually happens with highly anticipated releases like this, but only in Nike SB retailers and therefore in skate shops. It is not surprising that the first images and videos that portrayed the shoe were posted on the Nike SB Instagram profile, a decision aimed at reaffirming the deeper identity of this Nike division, showing its skaters on the board with that same sneaker that the collectors today keep behind a glass case. 

In this sense, the return of the Dunks has been organic. As skate culture gained new spaces in the mainstream fashion imagination, even bringing some of its best-known representatives on the catwalks of Paris, Nike returned to work closely with the small skate shops scattered all over the world, leaving them the release of the most anticipated sneakers. A calibrated and well-planned operation that undoubtedly should have reached its peak with the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, an edition that would have seen skate as one of the participating disciplines for the first time, reaching the official status of 'sport', the one with which Bodecker had always approached this world, but above all it proved to be a more than favourable opportunity to continue to push and promote Nike SB products. It is no coincidence that the uniforms of the various national teams sponsored by Nike SB would have been designed by Patta himself. 

The postponement of the Olympics to next year, the announcement of the release of a new Dunk designed once again by Virgil Abloh, together with the anticipated release of the Nike Dunk Low SP "Brazil", the Nike SB Dunk Chunky Dunkys in collaboration with Ben & Jerry's, and the COMME des GARÇONS x Nike Dunk Low, do nothing but confirm that the sneaker market will continue to be dominated by the Dunks, at least for a while.