Image via Nike
Don Crawley, known to the world as Don C, doesn’t even pretend that he’s got that kind of game. This son of Chicago’s South Side might have put his name to some coveted basketball shoes, but he’s not feigning sporting skills. “I knew I couldn’t hoop so I wasn’t gonna get no shoe that way! I had to figure out another way. I cannot hoop at all, but I have a Jordan," he says.
Don’s humility is almost at odds with the Chanel lambskin handbag inspired lavishness of the latest Just Don Jordans. He’s in London for a pre-launch of the new package — a colossal box that contains the new cream-colored version of the Air Jordan II, a leather cap and a pin. It’s the kind of packaging you have to buy its own storage unit after taking a deep breath and shelling out £535 in the 1948 NikeLab space.
Building a brand on a love of storytelling in product and his experiences with luxury goods, the Just Don line of premium, snakeskin brimmed baseball caps (based on the custom “buck fifty” hat — a Chicago hustler staple back in the day) has complemented Don C’s G.O.O.D Music career. While he professes an ambition for the brand to become the Jordan of hats, he spins the success into a motivational story for anyone else looking to make their mark, “I was able to do a Jordan Brand collaboration just off a hat! It’s not rocket science.”
30 years old this year, and sold for a staggering $100 when it debuted, 1986’s Air Jordan II remains the most underrated shoe in the dynasty’s history. That price, and a high-end look, made it one of the original dope boy necessities, as Peter Moore and Bruce Kilgore’s Italian-made creation eliminated the swoosh to create something truly unusual. The world wasn’t ready for it after the smash hit of its predecessor, so part II remains a cult shoe rather than a phenomenon.
“From a design aesthetic, I think it’s fresh. It’s so 2016. It’s like cream so you can wear it with everything,“ explains Don of the latest collaboration, “It should age real well. You can hoop and style in these.”
Narratively, this partnership makes sense — Don’s python accented vision of sports basics parallel the original Air Jordan II’s iguana texture panels. The celebration of the street-level trendsetters as well as the trendsetter on the court, plus of course, the Chicago connection, is a set of logical connections. Don reiterates that while it had its share of imitators, you can’t beat the real thing, “I promise, with this one we tried to step it up more and more. No other luxury brand can give you a sole like this.”
What he lacks in buckets, he makes up for in other techniques, “I play defense and hustle — that’s my mentality.”
Ahead of the Air Jordan and Just Don collection’s global release at the end of the month, we sat down with Don C to discuss the nuances of an occasionally overlooked masterpiece.
Look out for tweets from @Jumpman23 and @NikeLab for a chance to get your hands on the Jordan x Just Don Pack via a raffle system. Raffle closes January 29. Those successful will be notified by email on January 29 and the shoes will be available for collection at NikeLab 1948 London 30th January.
Don, did you suggest this project to Jordan Brand?
Two people who were very instrumental at Jordan Brand were a brother by the name of Jason Mayden and Gemo Wong. Those are my buddies and they were instrumental to me working with the company — in 2012 they reached out to me to design a charity shoe for Black History Month. The response was pretty overwhelming and it auctioned for around five or six thousand dollars a pair. I think that gave me the opportunity to work on another project, and the rest is history. I'm happy that the blue retro II went to market last year and this is the follow up.
The Air Jordan I and III get a lot of love but the II doesn't. We saw them in School Daze, Heavy D and the Skinny Boys record covers — obviously Jordan had memorable games in them too. What was your favorite cultural moment with this model?
Oh, it was definitely Michael Jordan in the dunk contest with the Jordan II. I think the point I wanted to bring with the baseball caps with the luxury brim was that I wanted to take a luxury item mixed with a sportswear item, and I think that the Air Jordan II was the first thing to do that in popular culture – producing it in Italy and making it a luxury basketball shoe was so ahead of its time that people weren't quite ready for it.
That's why I like the Gucci tennis shoes too. That leads us onto dope boy style. I always hear about the buck fifty hats plus towel coats – these little Chicago takes on sportswear. Do you think that the real influencers have always been hustlers?
You have to understand that right now, hip-hop culture controls the planet, but back then hip-hop culture was a different medium. It was an infant and hip-hop was biting from the dopeboys, so the drug dealers were the influencers. They could afford to get fresh and we couldn't afford to get as fresh as the dope boys, so we sold just look at them like, “Wowwww, look at the gold chain, that Starter jacket, the buck fifty and the Jordans!” We couldn't do it like that so we had to do our own thing. Hip-hop was able to reinvent the dope boy, so now instead of looking up to a drug dealer you looked up to a hip-hop star who was an entertainment version of a drug dealer. I think that's what it is and I definitely got a lot of aspects of my style from the dope boys and basketball players. They also infused that swag on the court and Michael Jordan was one of them. He had the gold chains in a game, he wore his shorts baggy and he wore his socks differently.
People chuckle at some of his recent outfits, but I sometimes think he's done so much work in defining styles that he doesn't need to try.
He doesn't have to do it now. When you young, you in it and you get your points by dressing a certain way. At this point in someone's life, they're probably looking at statements, dividends or P&Ls to prove they've got it. I remember Mike in the 1990's and I remember how we emulated him. We do today, but it's a modern take. Everything is a flip on something else.
I felt that when the Jordan II came out again in the mid 1990s it wasn't Italian made, which lost a key selling point in the shoe. I know that the Just Don versions aren't made in Italy, but were you trying to match that quality?
There’s Italian leathers on it and I couldn't have done the design by myself – all I could do was say what I like and email references and jpegs and those kind of things. The people that worked on the production for this thing did they thing, because they went to the factory and oversaw production to make it happen. They made it happen. I know that it pushed the envelope and hopefully it pushed the envelope so that all Jordans could be better and better – not to say that I had anything to do with that, but I like to see the progression of the brand.
Often a designer or collaborator has perimeters that they have to work with in terms of production and final cost, but this package isn't cheap, so did you get the freedom to do anything you wanted?
Well, I come from the subculture behind this which is the reseller gang. I know that there's a lot of people spending a thousand dollars on a shoe, because unfortunately a lot of people take advantage of the system and use bots to buy online, and they get 'em for box value and resell 'em. I even have to buy shoes from resellers a lot because they sell out right away and go for double or triple the price. A lot of people are consuming shoes and I don't think that they're tripping on the price they're paying if the product delivers on over what the price is. When that’s the case, they’re good.
Were the tonal colors something you'd been planning since the start?
No. Originally I was planning something more in line with the OGcolorways, but I deleted that because I was inspired by a couple of things and I wanted to go monotone with it.
Are you going to do more?
I hope so.
I saw the grey sample online...
I don't think that those are real. Beware of the "samples" on Instagram!
#teamearly can get caught out.
Our team early sometimes has them, but sometimes team early can be team sent off too. It happens with a lot of Just Dons I've seen online – I've seen a lot of colors that don't exist.
Sometimes I think colorways can be inspired by fakes though. They can be interesting.
Maybe in 20 or 30 years the fake shoes that are out now will be sought after.
I liked some of the old fake gear like the BOSS AMERICA hats and sweats more than some of the actual product.
Yeah! It's funny – on tours, I would always go outside the venue and pick up bootleg tour merch because I'd get ideas from it. They had some good ideas! They're not controlled by a company. Sometimes when a company asks you to design something, there are all of these perimeters. But a bootlegger is just like, “These look the freshest!”
They don't have those corporate interruptions so they know exactly what the consumer wants.
They know exactly what the streets want to see.
It's interesting that you've shone a light on the II. The Jordan I came out in the UK briefly back in the day, but the II never really dropped over here originally. The IIIs were hard to get, then the IV's were everywhere, so it's good to talk about the II for once.
Really? So did the Jordan I sell out right away in the UK?
Not to my knowledge. That 1987 issue of Sports Illustrated is odd too, where Michael’s dunking in Court Force Lows for some weird reason on the front, but on the back cover there's a Newport ad with a guy smoking while wearing a pair of Jordan II's.
On the same issue? That's a great marketing idea for a company – front and back.
But with good health and bad health on opposite sides. Do you feel that Chicago style has been acknowledged until recently? In the UK it's easy to get very New York-centric and forget that cities like Philly and Chicago have their own distinct styles and crazes. Even the braids lately were picked up from your city.
Oh yeah. Chicago is like any other big city in that it has its own styles, and it's hard to say which ones it can claim, but I will say that Jordans are one of those styles. In the late 1990s and early 2000s – I moved to New York in 2002 – I was aspiring to be in the music business, playing beats for A&Rs and record labels. Every time I'd walk up to anywhere, I'd have retro Jordans on.
That was back when the V's and VI's kind of sat for a moment.
I'd have VIs, VIs or Vs on my feet. People would freak out. It wasn't that long ago...actually I guess it was a long time ago. I'd go into people's offices and they'd be like, “Are those the Jordans from back in the day?” I think maybe two years later, everybody in New York was wearing Jordans. Friends from Chicago came to visit and they'd look down and say, “I see y'all New York niggas wearing Jordans now huh?” It was funny. They never knew that they wore Js there.