How the Nike Dunk became skateboarding’s most popular shoe

Skateboarding is a diverse sport. You’ll find skateboarders dressed countless ways. But no matter how baggy their pants are or how high their cuffs are, wherever you find a skateboarder, you’ll find something else: Nike SB Dunks.

This is a story of basketball, Nike’s battle to enter the skate scene, the emergence of streetwear into the mainstream, and one shoe’s place at the center of it all.

Chapter one: Colorful origins

The Nike Dunk was originally designed by Peter Moore in 1984. But before it was released as the Dunk, the shoe was planned to be called the College Color High—a name that will explain itself momentarily.

But as it happened, the shoe’s release in 1985 roughly coincided with the 40th anniversary of the first verified dunk in college history when a seven-foot center from Oklahoma State (the Oklahoma A&M Aggies at the time) named Bob Kurland slammed it home. That’s how the Dunk came to be the Dunk.

Identity: How the Dunk left the court and entered the bleachers

When the shoe was released, Nike signed deals with several schools, stipulating that their players would wear Dunks. But the Dunk was also extensively marketed toward non-athletes, with the now-famous slogan “Be True to Your School.”

The original colorways are representative of Michigan State, Syracuse, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and Kentucky and Iowa State. The highly modular design of the shoe, easily customized, would go on to be a huge factor in its rise to glory. Indeed, this factor was the Dunk’s first major breakthrough.

By marketing the shoe as not just a piece of athletic equipment, but as a means to signal a person’s belonging to a school proved to be one of the most important parts of the shoe’s journey. It was because of this that the shoe was able to break the confines of the court and become much more than just a basketball shoe.

It was also necessary for survival.

Basketball shoes rapidly evolved. So did the Dunk

The Dunk’s life as a serious basketball shoe was doomed to an early death from its inception. Basketball has changed significantly throughout its history, and nothing illustrates this better than the footwear technology used by players.

When the dunk was first introduced, it provided extra support without significantly limiting mobility. But the basketball shoe industry moved on, and by the early 90s, the shoe’s salad days were coming to a close.

But despite this, it was on the edge of being reborn.

Chapter two: Nike and the skate scene collide

In the 1990s, the Nike Dunk’s original tongue was replaced with a lighter nylon tongue. This made the shoe less bulky, endearing it to an exploding skate scene. Skateboarders had already been adopting Nike’s shoes with their classic silhouettes. As skating became more and more popular throughout the 80s and was headed for the mainstream by the late 90s, Nike wanted to cash in on it.

The company’s initial attempts at infiltrating the skate scene were… corny, to say the least. Three early-model Nike skate shoes were released in 1996. Behold: the Snak, the Choad, and the Schimp.

These Nike skate shoes were effectively mocked by the skate community. They were rightfully perceived to be knockoff versions of DCs or és skate shoes, and a bad-faith effort by Nike to gain market share in the subculture. The skate community was 100% right — although we should be grateful, because without Nike’s first foray into skateboarding, we’d never have this gem:

Bam wouldn’t skate early Nikes, so why would you?

In all seriousness, Nike’s first skate shoes sucked. That’s not an exaggeration. A young Bam Margera (seen doing the kickflip over the Nike Swoosh at the end of that commercial) said the Nikes were so bad, he’d cut the swoosh off and glue it to és’.

But despite Nike’s first skate shoes missing the mark, the Dunk was enjoying success with both skateboarders and the growing sneaker-collecting scene.

Sneaker Culture Emerges

Meanwhile, during the late 90s and early 2000s, forums like NikeTalk and increased internet availability gave birth to what we now know as sneaker culture and streetwear.

In 1999, Nike rereleased the original Dunk colorways designed for collegiate basketball, along with new colors. With forums came the ability to buy and sell shoes online, and collectors began buying Nikes, and Dunks in particular, from all across the world.

Nike had also been experimenting with geographically limited releases, most notably with its Concept Japan brand. Concept Japan, or Co.JP — the domain suffix for the country — were some of the most sought after Dunks in America. People were engaging in international trade for sneakers at a time when you couldn’t even download a skate video within a single day. The most devoted Dunk lovers even traveled across the Pacific to get the shoes themselves, giving birth to so-called sneaker tourism.

But the people clambering for CO.JP Dunks on forums like NikeTalk had no idea what was in store for the future of sneaker culture. Because what would come later would make sneaker tourism look like nothing.

Savier: Nike’s turning point

Nike’s first skate line was a failure. But they did learn that they couldn’t bludgeon their way into the skate community. So they took a different route on their second attempt.

In 2000, Nike bought Portland-based Savier skate shoes. With the facade of an authentic skate company and the backing of a billion-dollar company, Savier was poised to be exactly what Nike needed to cash in on those sweet, sweet skateboarding bucks.

However, after a few years of blowing through money, Savier was failing. Their most popular shoe was ironically the exact thing that led to Savier’s demise — and the birth of Nike SB.

The Savier Trainer was derived from the silhouette of the Nike Air Trainer 1. This illustrated a point to Nike that skateboarders had been demonstrating for the past two decades: a skate shoe can’t be optimized solely for performance. It needs to consider fashion, as well.

Chapter three: Nike SB is born

Nike skate shoes and Savier skate shoes had both been a little…

But that was about to change. In 2001, Nike put Sandy Bodecker in charge of Nike’s skateboarding development. He understood that to entrench Nike in the skate scene, it couldn’t be through blunt force like with Nike Skate Shoes, and it couldn’t be astroturfed like with Savier. It needed to be honest and natural.

And Bodecker realized that the entire time Nike had been trying to force its way into the skate community, they were already there — it just wasn’t with the shoes they had marketed to skateboarders. People had been skating Dunks just about since they came out in the mid 80s along with other retro Nike models, such as the Cortez, as worn by Farrah Fawcett in 1976.

Skateboarders have historically opted for clean silhouettes, even if the shoe’s performance is less-than-ideal. Think of Vans slip ons, Chuck Taylors, and Adidas Superstars. When it comes to skate footwear, the visual and artistic culture that surrounds skateboarding needs the same consideration, if not more, than performance.

The solution was finally obvious: Nike didn’t need to design new shoes. They needed to make their existing shoes better for skateboarding.

So, in 2002, the Nike SB Dunk Low was officially launched. It featured a fatter tongue, thicker rubber soles for grip tape, and improved padding in the insole. Nike finally found its niche in the skate community.

By taking advantage of their desirable, classic silhouettes and mixing them with the technology to make an incredibly durable and comfortable shoe, the Dunk SB became one of the best skate shoes on the market, while being highly fashionable too.

The first Nike Dunk collabs

A year earlier in 2001, Nike launched their first Dunk collaboration with the streetwear brand Stussy. Using a limited release model in a manner similar to high-fashion seasonal collections, the Stussy collab, its deliberately limited release, and the continued emergence of sneaker culture and streetwear into the mainstream catapulted Dunks back to popularity.

Limited-release collabs would prove to be critical to the SB Dunk’s continued rise to popularity, and that’s no surprise: the shoe’s original design which boasted a highly customizable design initially intended for repping school colors was rife with collaborative potential. With an aura of exclusivity, style, and functionality, the shoe appealed to skaters and sneakerheads alike.

Those two communities converged in 2002 when Supreme collaborated with Nike on a Dunk. Using the classic elephant print native to the Jordan line, the 2002 Nike SB Dunk and Supreme collab was a hit. Today, the shoe sells for over $8,000.

Collabs effectively engrained Nike in the skate community the way they hoped Savier skate shoes would. In 2002, Dunk collabs with Chocolate Skateboards and Zoo York were released, followed later by a second Supreme Dunk collab, this time featuring red and white Dunk SB Highs with gold stars.

This was the shoe Paul Rodriguez wore when, in 2004, he left és skate shoes for Nike SB. At the time, P-Rod was considered by many to be the best skateboarder in the world. While some perceived his joining Nike as ‘selling out’ or a betrayal of the skateboarding community, it cemented Nike as a player in the skate industry.

For much of the 2000s, Dunk SB collabs continued to come out, and the Dunk’s popularity continued to ride that rising wave. One of the most famous collabs from this period was the Nike SB Dunk collab with the New York City-based designer Jeff Staples.

To say these gray Dunks, with an embroidered pigeon on the outer heel, were highly anticipated would be quite the understatement.

They caused a literal riot.

People who purchased the shoe had to be escorted from the store by police, and the whole episode landed itself on the front page of the New York Post. Many people cite this instance as the moment sneakerhead culture went fully mainstream, with the sneaker riots making national news.

But, as sneakerhead culture went mainstream, there was great demand for it. With that demand came a lust for different styles. Slowly, the Dunks began to fade from the spotlight after nearly a decade of being the one of the most sought after shoes.

Since the shoe’s all-time-high Google search volume in 2007, the shoe dropped off significantly through the 2010s. Likely due to reasons such as an overall economic downturn, the rise of shoes like Yeezys, and the renewed popularity of Jordans, the Dunk’s popularity sat dormant from about 2014-2019.

Chapter four: The modern Nike Dunk

Despite a decrease in popularity, the Nike Dunk remained a staple in the worlds of fashion and skateboarding. The collabs continued: in 2016, the high-fashion brand Comme Des Garcons featured a dunk with transparent upper. This dramatic interpretation of the modular shoe was an emphatic reminder of the Nike Dunk’s potential.

The next high-profile collab came in 2019. Off-White designer Virgil Abloh released a Dunk collab featuring a mix of original ‘Be True to Your School’ colorways, and new Off-White features like a small red tag on the swoosh.

After this, the Dunk’s trajectory swung upward again. Indeed, it’s because of collabs like this that the shoe remains so popular. Collabs offer something novel in a familiar format. They stand out while fitting in. They showcase individualism while signaling belonging.

The Nike Dunk’s past, present, and less-certain future

The Dunk was the wedge that really broke Nike into skateboarding. It illustrated the strategy Nike needed to break into the skate community now. Rather, it illustrated that there was no ‘breaking in,’ only helping organic adoption take place.

The Nike SB Dunk reached its current place of notoriety thanks to its reception in fashion and music scenes. Skateboarding, whose culture is a combination of those two influences, is a natural home for the shoe. Today, skate shops will sell out of Dunks in a single day, collab releases will sell out online in minutes if not seconds, and the exclusivity of each drop only makes the shoe more desirable.

But Dunks’ current popularity can be attributed to other factors. They were cool in the 80s and 90s. As the kids who grew up in those decades got jobs and money to buy sneakers, Dunks came back into vogue. As a new generation comes of age, influenced by TikTok and Instagram since their early teens, what shoes will they covet?

If you think you know what the next must-have shoe in skateboarding will be, post it in the comments!