The hottest shoe of 2020, according to this year’s FN Achievement Awards, will receive at least one more reinterpretation before the year comes to a close.
Less than two months after streetwear retailer Concepts unveiled its turducken-inspired take on Nike’s Dunk, fellow Bostonian Bodega will debut a baseball-infused variation on the classic sneaker on Monday, with the shoe releasing two days later on the SNKRS apps.
Bodega, set behind a secret door within its namesake façade, “was born from a group of creative individuals,” Nike said. As its ranks have grown, it has too, expanding westward to add a location in Los Angeles. The team’s new Dunk design, its first, “celebrates the collective spirit of a crew and the local legends who hold them together,” Nike said.
“Being in Boston for almost 15 years now, our store feels more like a barber shop when you come in—a lot of people just pull up for the conversation,” Bodega designer Drew White said in a statement. “We often refer to it as a clubhouse in this way.”
Nostalgic nods to baseball cover the Nike x Bodega Dunk High SP “Legend.”
“Consider it both a cheeky homage to the Dunk’s team origins and a signifier of the shoe’s role in contemporary street culture all at once,” Nike said.
Bodega marketing director Matt Zaremba similarly echoed the idea that the Dunk “unites different subcultures” and “transcends aesthetics.”
“And at the advent of more commercial streetwear, the Dunk was rooted in tradition,” he added.
Bodega’s Dunk project honors creative director Marvin Jason Bynoe, who died on March 20.
“He was the type of role model all of us at Bodega strive to be, and in our eyes holds a certified legend status,” White said. “This Dunk is for the individuals in a crew that impact or influence everyone.”
Concepts, which has made a habit of releasing humorous takes on the Dunk year after year, debuted the Concepts x Nike SB Dunk High TurDUNKen at its retail stores and on its website last month. Emulating the infamous turducken—a dish consisting of a chicken stuffed into a duck stuffed into a turkey—the product included Nike Dri-FIT chicken feet socks, a duck-inspired Dunk and turkey wrapping paper.
A few days later, rising streetwear star Cactus Plant Flea Market dropped a Swarovski crystal-embedded Dunk, featured an oversized Swoosh, extra padding on the tongue and detachable double lace flaps.