story

So much of Bode is around my love and understanding of collecting and how that led me to be the person I am today. I'm Emily Adams Bode Aujla and I'm the founder and designer of Bode.

I was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Both of my parents are from Massachusetts. I grew up going to flea markets and kind of antique shops with my mum and grew to love the history behind objects and materials.

That kind of teed us up to think about what our ideal partnership would be. Nike meant we were partnering with such a historic American brand. Our partnership is ...

... a capsule collection, a few pieces of clothing and two colourways of the Astrograbber shoe. So we have the 'Manhattan' colourway and the 'Cape Cod' colourway. One of the earliest things that I remember collecting were charms. I wanted that ...

... foundational experience to be part of this collaboration. From a material aspect, I wanted to keep the integrity of the original Astrograbber. There was this really wonderful anecdotal story from Nike employee number one. It starts with ...

... problem-solving around AstroTurf. The idea was to create a shoe that could be used on this new material. Bill Bowerman had also been developing the Waffle sole and it was made using a waffle iron ...

... of his wife's. Upon visiting Nike and going to the Department of Nike Archives, which is DNA, I really fell in love with some of the handmade reproductions, which I thought were just as magical.

Talk about the different materials, silhouettes, widths and the midsole or the outsole. We really wanted to elevate the materials to suit the contemporary market today,

a leather upper and still offering like a cotton style mesh. After doing a lot of research on the influence of American sports in our society,

I kind of came up with a brand statement. That is now on the inside tongue and it reads, "Bode Recreation explores the evolution of athletic wear and character building through American institutional sport and competition. The collection is the reimagining of sporting apparel ...

... from the 1770s to the 1970s". One of the personal narratives that I'm looking at for this collection is my dad's relationship to sport. This is actually my dad here. Sport and recreation have been extremely influential to myself and to my family.

Much like Nike philosophy, I believe that sport and recreation are vital to the growth of us as individuals and how they help you build into a more virtuous person.

Behind the design

Astrograbber x Bode