Editorial - October 10, 2019

That's 5: adidas Campus 80s Initial Product Offering™ (IPO) | Alex Nash

Kevin Kosanovich

Kevin holds a Ph.D. in American studies and is an expert in American cultural history and hip-hop. He is the Senior Content Manager at StockX.

London-based designer, Alex Nash, worked with adidas MakerLab to reimagine the iconic adidas Campus 80s silhouette. Nash’s sneaker, along with Shun Hirose aka RECOUTURE  and Helen Kirkum’s versions, is now available exclusively via The adidas Campus 80s StockX IPO.

Read about Nash’s design influences, thoughts on his Campus 80s, and more below.

The following interview has been lightly edited. 

What influenced your sneaker design?

My main influence came from my love for adidas’s iconic Torsion/ZX/EQT ranges. When I started my destroy-and-rebuild technique of customization back in 2003, I was taking elements from other footwear—hiking, moccasin, boat shoes—and juxtaposing them into the sneaker world. When I started, I didn’t have the training, huge funds, or the machinery to produce at scale. Working with adidas’s huge archive and having their vast technical capabilities has allowed me to take my hybrid style and bring in elements of from across adidas’s archive. This is the true definition of collaboration!

How did you go from concept to finished sneaker?

Very slowly at first because the way I get from concept to finished sneaker is different from the way adidas works. When I make something, I do it mostly by hand, and in some cases, without a sewing machine. It’s easy for me to visualize my design in my head, and thinking through how I would construct my project from start to finish, with total control. Being able to overcome my reflex of having full control was possible due to the fantastic people at the MakerLab concept and the adidas team. Very quickly, we learned to respect and appreciate each other’s processes and integrating them for maximum creative output. Once the designs were extracted from my head, via drawings, mood boards of colors, fabrics, and application techniques, the process became very straightforward.

What do you find most exciting about your sneaker?

It’s the pure rawness; it’s the “no time for tinkering or second-guessing” aspects of it; it’s the pure, first concept of the sneaker with minimal changes. If you gave me the time, I would make so many changes that the result would be completely different from the original concept. This ain’t happening here!

What do you want people to take away from your sneaker?

I’m not sure, really. Like my previous answer, I want people to recognize its rawness.  It’s quite a lairy sneaker in style and colour, so I get it ain’t for everyone. It’s not every day I get to work with one of the biggest brands in the industry, on a concept as unique as this. It’s not something I took for granted; I put my heart and soul into it, and that’s something someone can appreciate. This is not another sneaker churned out from the design department. This is a sneaker with a story and a person behind it that gives it more meaning.

I don’t come from a design background. First and foremost, I’m a sneakerhead, a consumer, and I accidentally fell into this industry working on the front lines of sneaker retail. So this is a sneaker by a sneakerhead for sneakerheads, young and old. Also, the adidas MakerLab is a relatively young concept in the grand scheme of things. I can only see it growing and expanding under the adidas umbrella of brands and departments. I think by owning this sneaker or the other sneakers designed by the ridiculously talented Helen and Shun, you’d be owning a historic part of the MakerLab journey. I think that’s something a true sneakerhead can appreciate.

What adidas silhouette would you like to redesign next?

Good question. This is my opportunity to give a blatant hint to adidas! I don’t have to hint; they already know it would be the ZX8000. It’s one of my GOATS. It encapsulates everything I like about sneakers, from comfort and function to style, design, and twisted combinations of colour. If I’m honest, it totally slipped under my radar when it was initially released in the late ’80s. It only was when I started working in a sneaker store in west London in 2002 and started pushing my fetish for sneakers to a new level that my love affair with the ZX8000 started. It taught me one of my first valuable lessons: never judge a sneaker by how it looks on the shelf. I remember working on the shop floor for months seeing it on the shelf, not paying it any mind, not feeling it at all. One day this dapper looking dude came in and asked to try them, I was thinking “really,” but he put them on, and it blew my mind how good he made them look. From that day on I swore I’d never judge a sneaker until I tried it on.

Recently, I was going my sneakers and found a receipt for two pairs of 1998 deadstock Aqua ZX8000 I bought in 2003. They were £9.99 in the sale, and I thought I was clever buying two pairs. I think everyone slept on that sneaker. The 2013 release now is trading for $250+ on StockX, and you see the 2009 Aquas going for $400+ (just so you know, it’s not about the resell for me, it’s about how much it costs for me to obtain it).

Article Updated 02/06/2020

@alexnash187