NikeLab ACG is officially here, and if you haven't heard/seen, the sportswear giant went all out for this one.
Nike first announced the news last week. Yesterday, it revealed that the line, first created in 1989, would be reborn as NikeLab ACG and would focus on sport utility for city dwellers, as opposed to strictly exclusively designing for those who love the outdoors, as was its previous mission. Oh, and they also unveiled another piece of news: Acronym's co-founder, Errolson Hugh, designed the collection. Like we said, big news.
The seven-piece collection—jackets, tops, a pair of pants, a backpack, and footwear—uses Nike's leading textile technology of Tech Fleece, Dri-FIT Wool, and Flyknit for an unparalleled performance aspect. Honestly, who better to design the line than Hugh, especially given that Acronym is known for creating functional technical apparel that doesn't compromise its look? We had the chance to speak to Hugh about his inspiration for the pieces, how he adapted to the new focus of the line, how he decided to incorporate the iconic Nike ACG logo, and why the collection was released much sooner than the initial October 2015 date. Spoiler: He also told us there's definitely more NikeLab ACG pieces dropping soon.
Interview by Matthew Henson
This is very exciting. It’s kind of an extension of what you already do so well.
Hopefully [Laughs]. I hope it is.
The first thing I noticed was a lot of bonded seam details and so much attention to detail, which speaks to not only your personal brand but the heritage of ACG. What were some of the things, or were there any materials that you work with that Nike has worked with before?
Gore-Tex was huge, that was a must. We immediately agreed on that, that we had to use Gore-Tex. Then Tech Fleece was huge for them, and it's a great material to work with. There is so much technology that Nike has in place, that it was more about focusing in on what we need to do to make this thing a complete package on the first outing and then how do we stage different phases of the launch. The collection will be fully realized as it progresses.
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Let’s discuss the fit of these pieces, because a majority of outdoor-based and technical collections don’t focus on how modern men dress, and what their activities are. The look of your iteration of ACG is fluidly evolved.
Fit and appearance was a huge part of the design process and overall conversation with this re-launch. We had huge discussions about whether or not it should cover the sneaker, if it should show off the sneaker, all that stuff. With Mark Parker, you hear great stories about Michael Jordan, about how he gets his suits made. Mark is extremely detail driven, he even asked how much sock would be visible from the bottom of the pants to the footwear.
There’s a notion that being outdoors for today’s man is more about commuting, not so much skiing or snowboarding. It’s about the day-to-day getting from point A to point B and interacting with different people. Maybe you could help people understand why that is the new focus rather than outdoor sports?
For whatever reason, compared to outdoor performance, it’s a relatively new idea to address the city, the urban content, in a functional way—so all the technology comes from either military or active sports or outdoors. We are laying the foundation down on how to not only be able to perform outdoors but to be comfortable in the cityscape. And it’s about the right time, too, because more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, so it’s vital. At Nike, they like to say the urban area is the ultimate landscape because it is dynamic, constantly changing, and within a single outing or a single day and it’s just more intense.
Personally, I was shocked, and pleasantly surprised to see a funnel neck in this collection. Hoodies are commonplace but a funnel-neck? Most people don’t really understand the funnel neck. What made you jump and design that?
It’s just a good silhouette, obviously it’s functional, wind protection whatever, concealment. But it’s also just a good look. And it’s great in tech fleece.
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Briefly—the pants are tapered, but have a slight drop-crotch but slims out in the lower leg. What are some of the key ideas for the pants that accompany this collection?
You have to really try everything on. It's hard to explain the fit, we worked on it so many times and had so many samples. It’s a fit that is suited for everyone.
The logo has changed. Were you hesitant to change it, and to break up the letters from the logo, which are so iconic on the jacket?
We really pushed for that actually, because after we had established the fit, the whole direction, and we were approaching the end of the thing and we were about to finalize everything we were like, “Man, we really need to make sure this thing is aggressive enough. We really needed to hurt some feelings.” How can we do that? And then we were like, “Do we go back to the pop colors? Do we go back to the old ACG thing? No, we need to find a way to do it differently.” That's how it came out.
We looked at competition sports particularly. What’s the most aggressive thing? It’s Formula One, it’s America’s Cup, competition graphics, racing, all that stuff. And that’s where that came from. There’s just something about that type of graphic that suggests functionality—it’s very minimalist, it’s super bold. We presented it and people were like, “Are we sure about this?” and it took them a second, but we built the first promo, we took the movie graphics, and put them on the jacket and in the end they were like, “Okay now we get it, rock and roll.”
I was interested when you guys were talking about the ‘90s and that time period where ACG was so prominent, and how at that time ACG used pops of bright colors. In this collection there is just one color besides black and navy, and that’s an electric blue. Why that color instead of none at all?
We were looking at all the different colors ACG had used in the past and orange was one of the more consistent colors. This particular use of color is just super subjective—the blue just felt energized, electric, it just felt cool. So it still fit into with, you know Mark was like stealth, stealth, stealth, black, black, black. No color, no logo, nothing in the beginning. But we felt it still fit in that thing. The other urban colors worked together well, you know the dark blue, the navy.
For a while, what I found in my market work and trend forecasting at Complex is that a lot of guys are foregoing wearing any color at all. It’s great to see you are really still honoring the roots of ACG with using some color. Will fans of ACG get their color fix in the future, and will there be more clothing and shoe offerings or will this be standard each season?
We might offer some color, it’s still very early to say. In the spring there is another drop. There’s going be another bomber jacket coming out. New colors with the shoes and that’ll just continue and we’re going get deeper and deeper. The summer we’ll just drop some layers, shorts. This is just the beginning really. The collection was supposed to come out October 2015, so a year from now, but when they saw the first one, Mark particularly was like, “I’m going with this now.”
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