Nike is releasing a Dunk Low themed around CBGB, the Bowery venue that closed in October 2006. The shoe features distressed suede uppers and inner-tongue labels printed with Bleecker and Bowery street signs. It drops June 2 at $130.
The timing is notable. CBGB has been gone for nearly two decades. The building is now a John Varvatos store, then a menswear pop-up, now something else. The punk and new-wave acts that made the venue's reputation are museum subjects. Nike is not early to this reference. The shoe arrives long after the cultural moment it commemorates.
That lag is the point. The Dunk Low is not a document of downtown New York. It is a heritage play aimed at buyers who know CBGB as a logo, not a room. The distressed finish reads as vintage signifier, not as evidence of wear. The street signs are Easter eggs for people who will never walk that corner.