Tourmaline. Tourmaline. For some reason, I woke up with the word ‘Tourmaline’ on my mind and the word just sticks with me. I don’t know if it’s because it’s something I’ve never really heard of it (before the shoe), but I will forever associate the word ‘Tourmaline’ with this shoe.
I’m not a journalist, but I spoke with the designer @adaclock , so I may be entirely biased (I likely am), but there’s something about it that makes me think ‘this is exactly what Nike needs more of: ‘memorable details intertwined with rarely told stories.’ It’s a bold shoe for a stale category.
In what was meant to shed light on an oft-overlooked culture, the actual story behind the design really isn’t getting told…and, despite the fact that it was meant to be a BHM release (in May?), it seems that there’s a whole host of reasons unrelated-to-the-actual-sneakers behind the poor rollout. And that’s really a shame because I think it’s a unique viewpoint that could (actually) (probably) most definitely open up a new world to a subset of American ignorami that think the world starts and ends with a particular group of people and it’s just absurd. Absurdly absurd.
In regards to my own creative ventures, my dad once told me — ‘do something common uncommonly’ – and, man, are those words to create by. Although it’s hard for ME to get excited about a 40-year-old shoe that already exists in nearly a trillion variations, this one is so uncommon on so many levels that it hit the mark perfectly.
@sonsofblackmaria showed me this pic he created and I thought…man…we can’t just let this one fall out of the sneaker hype cycle: this one is important. And it’s important for everything it strives for personally and it’s important for how the ball was dropped corporately. In what should have been an absolute banger in terms of culture and design and marketing, we were presented with a ‘could have been’.
Am I going to buy these? Likely not. I can probably go the rest of my life without wearing another pair of dunks: but that doesn’t mean I can’t celebrate it.