INTERVIEW: CHRIS GIBBS AND THE UNION AIR JORDAN 1

John Kim: You were featured in Jordan Brand’s epic Unbannable campaign earlier this year. What was that like?
 
Chris Gibbs: One of the marketing guys at Jordan Brand asked if I wanted to be in it. I thought it was just going to be a photo campaign, and it was shot last September when we were all in New York City for Fashion Week. I was super honored to be a part of it, but I really thought it was just a photoshoot-I didn’t know about the commercial. That only started to reveal itself when I got there.
 
So I get to the set, it’s me, Hiroshi Fujiwara, a bunch of other names, it’s just a lot of waiting. I look at the back behind a curtain and I see a jet ski on a rotary machine, and they’re like “Oh, Khaled shot his scene yesterday, and Travis Scott is gonna be here tomorrow and we got a closed set because of pyrotechnics.” That’s when I knew it was gonna be huge.

You mentioned Hiroshi being there. What’s he like? What your relationship with him?
 
To preface, if I was telling the story of the history of streetwear…it doesn’t exist without these three cities. First off, streetwear was born in New York, That’s where it all started. But when it was happening, most Americans didn’t really understand it, but the consumer that does understand it right away is in Tokyo. All of the earlier streetwear brands, Stussy, Supreme, Union, what have you, don’t exist without Japan understanding it. Full stop.
 
Hiroshi brought that whole world there and created that silk road between Tokyo and NYC. The way streetwear has evolved to what it is today and how diverse it is, it doesn’t happen without Japan. And as they say, Hiroshi Fujiwara is the godfather of streetwear in Japan. How LA fits in is, if you want to open a store in NYC, you need a LOT of guap. It’s expensive. And when streetwear really started to get big, most of the successful brands had a base in Los Angeles. The rent and overhead is affordable, and in the early aughts, streetwear was still growing and it needed a place to continue that growth.
 
Hiroshi is pivotal. I look up to him a LOT. I’m part of the generation that came after him. He is one of my forefathers — Eddie Cruz, Fraser Cooke, James Jebbia, these guys were all retailers just like me. Going back to that Jordan photoshoot last September – we had a meeting there to kick off the Union x Fragment Design project. That’s what start it all. We went out, had a blast, it was just a crazy night.
 

Why do you think that after seven years, your Air Jordan 1 design concept still resonates?
 
I think it’s for a couple of reasons. One is that, I hope, there is an appreciation for what the Union and Jordan relationship represents. Sometimes it’s still like wow, Jordan is reaching out to the small guy. Me? I’m gonna be in this commercial that’s gonna play in the Super Bowl? I think what we represent is this “anything is possible” type of idea. It can happen for anybody and the attraction to that idea is there. I’m the guy who started in the mailroom that now owns the company. I was getting paid $8 an hour. People look up to that, and I think that’s part of why the collaborations are successful.
 
Secondly, I think we’re very considerate of the Air Jordan 1 model. There are so many versions of the shoe out there and I don’t know the specific code or unit number or whatever, but the guys at Jordan know which one I like. Our version has a sharper angle at the toe; I don’t know what the technical term is. For example, Air Ships are kinda flat, but ours is more like a Dunk and just has the best on-foot fit.
 
When we first talked with Jordan about a project years ago, we wanted to do a “greatest hits” of the Air Jordan 1. There are twelve original colors from 1985 and we mixed and matched all of them, but we picked the Storm Blue and the Black Toe because those were just my favorites.
 
I was specific about the leather; it wears well, it fits well, and there’s just great attention to detail into how the shoe was made. We considered it all because we know the consumer is smart; they know what they want. I’m proud of the attention to detail we put into the Air Jordan 1 and I hope that comes through. And yes, people still love it to this day and that doesn’t happen by accident.
 

The shoes age really, really well. It’s one of the shoes that might look even better when it’s beat down.
 
That was by design. Our first pattern trial when we first did the 2018 pairs, we wanted it washed out with a nice patina, but there was some resistance to that. So what’s the next best thing? Let’s make a shoe that wears really well by using the right leathers. It does wear so well. I personally love the Storm Blue pair and my pair is still my favorite and it’s totally beat. I don’t even have a pair of the Black Toes…I think my kids just took them.
 

Recently the UNC/Royal sample was revealed. Why not release that pair? Why the Chicago/Shadow over those?
 
When we first talked with Jordan about a project years ago, we wanted to do a “greatest hits” of the Air Jordan 1, right? We picked the Storm Blue and the Black Toe because those were just my favorites, but we sampled the Chicago/Shadow and a bunch others.
 
So for this upcoming release, when Jordan called me up again, I actually pitched three ideas. One is the Chicago/Shadow, the second is the UNC/Royal sample that we showed, and the third was the collaboration with Hiroshi Fujiwara. The cadence we like best is that we drop two shoes: One is exclusive to us, and one gets more globally distributed. That’s how we’ve always done our releases. The UNC/Royal was supposed to be the second color way, but there were factory limitations which prevented us from doing a second one. It wasn’t us, it wasn’t Jordan, it was the factory and that’s just the reality of production.
 
I do have 100 pairs of the UNC version, and I don’t know what i’m going to do with it yet. Everyone is asking about it and people are asking me why we didn’t make them, and trust me it’s frustrating. It won’t be for sale though. Maybe I can do a charity auction or something.

I don’t know if you’re aware, but a sneaker customizer named @chefhuyle made the Chicago/Shadow back in 2020, which just speaks to how good the Union concept really is.
 

Wow, I didn’t even know that. There’s a lot of good designs out there and there’s a lot of talented dudes out there. The Shoe Surgeon did some incredible stuff too with the Air Jordan 1. And he did our Air Jordan 4 using the leather and materials from our Dunk. It’s a fuckin’ work of art. I like looking through them.
 

You’ve done the Air Jordan 1 in four ways, and the Air Jordan 4 in four ways. What’s next for Union and Jordan?
 
Well, we have the fragment design collaboration that’s coming later. After that, i’d like to explore other silhouettes. There are a bunch we haven’t done. I love the Air Jordan 1, but it does have its limitations. We haven’t started talking about it yet, but hopefully we’ll start those conversations soon because I’d like to explore other models and do something we haven’t done yet.