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- Cut
- Low Top
- Upper
- Leather
- Colourway
- Opti Yellow
NIKE SB DUNK LOW GRATEFUL DEAD BEARS OPTI YELLOW
NIKE SB DUNK LOW GRATEFUL DEAD BEARS OPTI YELLOW
- Cut
- Low Top
- Upper
- Leather
- Colourway
- Opti Yellow
DELIVERY AND AUTHENTICATION
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Culture Note™
Designed by Peter Moore and released on 24 July 2020 as part of Nike's Dunk SB line. This release has the Opti Yellow/Blue Fury colourway. Music and Nike have a complicated shared file. The company used the Beatles' Revolution in 1987 after paying Capitol Records without Apple Records' approval, was sued for 15 million dollars and pulled the advertising in March 1988. Nike SB then appropriated Minor Threat's album art for a 2005 tour flyer, was publicly criticised by Ian MacKaye, and apologised on 27 June 2005. This SB Dunk Low goes the other way: a properly licensed Grateful Dead project, built around the band's bear motif, in Opti Yellow. It is what the relationship looks like when the paperwork comes first, and the shoe is loud enough to make the point.
Two approaches. Full commitment: black or dark indigo straight leg denim, a plain black tee, nothing else with a graphic, so the yellow is the entire outfit. Muted: grey sweats and a heather hoodie, treating the shoe as the only saturated object you are wearing. Sizing follows standard SB Dunk, which is your usual Dunk size, with the padded tongue filling out the fit. Wear it dry and on clean surfaces if you care about resale or condition, since bright yellow shows every mark and unusual uppers cannot be deep cleaned. If you plan to skate it, understand you are choosing to destroy an artwork on purpose.
The Grateful Dead's bears are one of the most recognisable pieces of counterculture iconography in America, which is exactly why a shoe carrying them travels beyond skateboarding. Nike's own path into culture ran through basketball and hip hop, with Dunks, Air Force 1s and Air Max models becoming staples of mainstream American youth dress from the 1980s onward and returning through 1990s and 2000s casualwear. A licensed band collaboration in that lineage reads as Nike buying its way into a scene it did not build, which is a fair criticism, and the counterweight is that the last two times it took music without asking, in 1987 and 2005, it paid for it publicly.
An SB Dunk is a low cut court shoe rebuilt for skating: extra padding at the tongue and collar, cushioning under the foot, and a flat sole that keeps board feel. Nike's tread thinking descends from Bill Bowerman's waffle iron experiments, the founding piece of the company's outsole engineering. This pair's identity is its texture and its yellow, and both are demanding to own. Do not wet clean an unusual upper. Brush it dry and gently, in one direction, and keep it away from denim dye transfer, since Opti Yellow will take a blue stain permanently. Store it in a box out of sunlight, because a bright dye fades faster than any leather panel would.
- Cut
- Low Top
- Upper
- Leather
- Colourway
- Opti Yellow
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