story

I'm Parra, Piet Parra, from Amsterdam. I'm an artist, living and working here. When you get a request to do a new collab with Nike and Nike SB, you're like "What do I make?"

For Nike SB and for the Dunk, where I go to personally is "what would I wear?" if I went skating myself. And then I try to find drawings that might fit with it.

The concept of the new SB Dunk: it is based on landscapes and the previous pieces I did for the skateboarding kits.

Coming from landscapes, nature elements … it's like soil, it's like earth, it's the floor, the ground you skate on.

The difference between the kit graphic work and patterns and the Dunk is that I zoomed in even more. I had to make sure you could kind of see which country it represented.

For the Dunk, I didn't have to do that. I just zoomed in to the ground, and then added black outlines. I darkened the colours a bit so, it's not too crazy when you look down at your feet.

It's a very difficult sport to learn, you know, so when you've got it down, you feel a bit different. Like, "hey, I put in all this work and I'm a skateboarder, so I'm going to wear something different".

And this was very important—to make sure that there was not just one thing they could wear, but there were multiple options. I don't think any other sports give you that option.

Skateboarding is so different. We can't give them just one uniform.

What makes a good skateboarding shoe … It's so personal. I used to skate in the early 2000s to the mid 2000s, the Dunk came out and I skated with that all the time. 

But all in all, I think the Dunk is snug on your feet like a good glove. And it's durable. It's a classic.

Behind the Design—Nike SB Dunk Low Pro x Parra 'Abstract Art'

Behind the Design

Nike SB Dunk x Parra