Who does a grand opening with Nike Sportswear’s Category Footwear Lead Gentry Humphrey? Canada’s very own Exclucity. And on December 7th, the Canadian shop opened up it’s third location in Montreal’s Dix30 shopping district. The Grand Opening gave customers the opportunity to scoop up almost a years worth of past releases, as well as a Q&A with Gentry himself. If you missed out on this epic opening and the Q&A session, Modern Notoriety has you covered. Gentry speaks on All-Star Weekend, Lebron’s issue with his 11th signature shoe and more.
What’s your history with Jordan Brand [JB] and how did you transition into NSW?
I pretty much was Michael [Jordan]’s right hand man and we started to develop the Jordan business. I basically started on the AJ 4, stopped doing shoes with Jordan after the 23. The [Air Jordan] 23 was the last shoe that I really worked on. After the 23 I was actually responsible for trying to grow the international business for JB, and so I stopped doing the actual creation of product for a little bit to try to help grow the business of JB worldwide. When I started it, we were a $160 million business and now we’re a little bit over a billion dollars. That was my job for a little bit, then the president of Nike asked me to move over to try and grow the Nike business.
What are some current projects you’re working on and what’s the mission you have with Nike?
We’re trying to do this thing that we’re calling “amplify” categories–we take a category like basketball and we build a product for consumers who are wearing the product on the basketball court, and rock some of that stuff for everyday lifestyle wear. My responsibilities there were to try and grow that portion of business so I’ve been with NSW for the last two and a half years. I think I have some great opportunities to do some fun things when you work with MJ, and what he stands for basketball both on and off the court–that same inspiration kind of spills over into the world that I lived in. So with the same intensity that Michael approached the game with, I try and bring those values and intensity to the shoe world so that the consumers around the world have the opportunity to live a piece of Michael’s world and we can deliver on Michael’s true inspiration, value of what he perceives as successful in the market.
What’s the most underrated shoe you’ve ever worked on?
I worked on a lot of shoes [laughs], but I think the most underrated is the AJ 23. The reason I say that is because the 23 was really an attempt at how do you reconstruct shoes and manufacture them in a whole different way from an aesthetic point of view. The entire team went out to Nevada, to this Indian reservation and [we began to] understand the culture that was happening. I was impressed by the craftsmanship–how the tribes were crafting their products, and so I said, “How can we bring some of that into this project?” At the time, Michael was into motorcycle racing–he had just bought a motorcycle racing team–and we asked what would happen if the two worlds of the tribal nature of Native Indians and the motor racing world combined. And so that was where we started the project, and I think it came together. But then ok…how can you start to manufacture a shoe where its more where you’re using glues that aren’t harmful and how are you building a more sustainable project? How can you construct a product total different that the industry hasn’t seen? And that’s what we did, everything we looked at and tried to make that sustainable was a true challenge. From the craftsmanship to the stories, I think that was probably one of the most underrated shoes, but there’s a lot of them. But then again, we don’t always get it right.
How about outside of Jordan Brand?
I have to go way back. Before JB became a brand, it was part of Nike world, so I worked on JB before it was a brand, a bunch of shoes even before then. I would probably say probably the Penny’s, maybe the Penny 3. Some of those shoes didn’t get the love. Even right now, Foamposites are dope, but back then they didn’t get the love that they deserved–that was a whole new way of making shoes also, so I would say probably one of those.
Favorite sneaker?
Of all time? Definitely the Jordan 11.
Which colorway?
The Concords, the white/black. Just because when they first came in, people thought I was crazy–so we went through the whole process with design, but when the actual sample came in, I was running around freaking out. For me, it was just so different from anything that was happening at the time. I loved it, and the crazy thing is…what we try to do is go out and talk to people in focus groups and see who’s gonna like what, and so we were showing it to kids…some were trendsetters, and they were like “Oh you gotta take that shiny shit off the shoe..it looks terrible.” Because you know, no one had used patent leather, and we were like, “That’s making the shoe!” So, we had more people saying “Don’t do it, don’t do it!” than “Do it!” and we, as a team kept saying, “You know what? we’re gonna roll with this because we are feelin’ it.” And so it was my favorite because we stuck to our guns and our gut told us that it was the right thing to do. About ninety percent of people told us not to do it, and today it’s one of the best models.
How many pairs of shoes do you own?
Honestly, I don’t know. Well you know, someone got paid because when I went from doing Nike to just JB, I probably gave away 600 pairs of shoes that were anything from original Pennies to crazy stuff. I was just like, “I’m gonna be a Jordan guy now.” So I took them down to a local thrift shop and was like, “Here you go!” I started doing all the Jordan stuff, and in my collection now–I did an article, they came by and asked but I said I really don’t know–so I did an estimate, and at that time which was probably about 4 years ago, it was 3,154 pairs. Now I’m really, really selective about what I take on, but if I had to guess, probably around 3,500.
Everyone wants to know–in terms of samples, do you get to choose what goes on there? How do you come up with colorways?
So when we sample up shoes, there are a lot of times where we base it on a story. And even now, with the teams, we talk to the them to come up with a story behind it–a story that is truly authentic to whatever project we’re working on. So I’m not sure how many people know, but Michael played in Europe. He did an exhibition game out there and he wore this European uniform and in the game, he actually shattered a backboard. And to me, there should’ve always been a shoe that played off of that story, Today, I have tons of ideas of how I would bring that out. i think that if you are able to create a story around a shoe that allows people to appreciate the bigger context of why–there’s a lot of stories that you can tell that can help create what the story should be, and so…in the history of what I’ve done, there are stories that I have [in my head] that never made it to market. I have some colors that may never come out, but they could come out.
Do you still have the ability to make decisions to come out with sample pairs for yourself?
Not so much that, but like I said, we usually sample up several different colorways to bring into the marketplace because we’ll have around 150 shoes that will come out in a season and what we have to do is make sure it all makes sense. If we did one shoe in red, black and green, it doesn’t make sense to do a whole bunch of other shoes in red, black and green. We try to merchandise [product] and make the most sense of each colorway to give a lot of variety and opportunities for people to pick their colors, but also allow each shoe to have the best opportunity for success.
What are your best personal memories from Jordan Brand?
There were so many, but the thing I loved most about JB was that as a small group, we controlled a lot of business. We were able to make decisions as a team, and when you get more and more big that becomes more difficult to do. But what I would really enjoy is that we would sit down as a small team, and talk about where we wanted to take our projects–everybody you can count on. That guy’s doing good, this guy’s doing good. Everyone plays a strong part in it because they all have the same vested interest in it and making it right. Things would just come together naturally and that’s pretty special to me.
And the worst thing?
Since there’s so many things in the business that consumers don’t realize we have to do, everyone gets super vocal about certain projects–”Oh you should bring this out, do it in this colorway, you should’ve never done this..”–you can never ever please everyone, and there are certain business decisions made on certain projects. Most people don’t understand that part of it–emotions versus the business side of things.
With Jordan Brand, there’s criticism of releasing too many pairs and releasing too many Retros, and other situations like that. Now that you’re with Nike, essentially you’re seeing the whole problem again, with so many colorways of the Lebrons and the KDs…
There’s a fine line because we always try to do things on the “fewer pairs” side because we want things to stay a little special–there’s a fine line between doing a ton of business and putting a ton in the marketplace versus [keeping something special]. There’s no real answer for that, and not all projects are created equal. So you could do a hot shoe this year, come back next year and think it’s hot, but then consumers don’t want it and you’re doing the same amount of pairs and the shoe flops. There’s no real answer to it, so we just have to try to make the best decisions based on all the information that we have. It’s a tough one.
As a company [Nike] and a product development manager for NSW, would you say that All-Star Weekend is one of the biggest stages for you?
I think for “sport moments,” I really try to challenge our team to capitalize on what’s going on, and All-Star Weekend is one of them. But really, there are a lot of these moments that you can take advantage of to create stories–NBA Championships, special moments like Kobe hitting 81 points–there are a lot of sport moments that you can tell stories with and because those are authentic moments, I think people appreciate what you do more when you craft them around [those] authentic moments. So with All-Star Weekend, you can create a story particular to that city and steer it in a way where the consumers sees the product in the light of what’s happening in that particular city and moment. Again, they can appreciate that product much more. But throughout the year, there are several moments where I try to challenge our team to develop special creative times that consumers can embrace and respect.
In terms of themes, what can we expect during All-Star Weekend?
The team worked together, both performance basketball and sportswear group to come up with a theme. so when you think of New Orleans, what our themes thought about was that N.O. was probably one of the biggest melting pots–you’ve got all types of cultures, all types of food, music, and because it’s an area where you have so many different things that come together as one, it becomes like a different place. it’s really different from any other city in the US. So what we did was kind of try to blend these things. And so, when you think about something that relates to blending things, people think about Gumbo–when you eat Gumbo, it’s a southern dish, there’s a bunch of things in it, so we came up with this idea of the “Mojo Gumbo.” We wanted to give consumers the opportunity to get excited about something, so you got “Mojo,” you’re on the move, but there’s also this concept of “gumbo” where you put everything in it to come up with this new point of view. So that’s kind of the theme that we’re going with, and we’re using a lot of things that are relevant to N.O. to help tell our story. and then we’re trying to do some things that are way different, considering what they went through with Hurricane Katrina, we have a lot of givebacks. N.O. gives a lot through culture, so we want to give back to N.O. so we’re doing a lot of things to work on that as well.
Why wasn’t Lebron wearing the Eleven [XI] earlier in the season?
Actually, LBJ has some very very specific needs. If you remember where LBJ was over the last couple of years we had different [air bags], and I think the great thing about LBJ is that he’s been a great athlete to work with. I think as he’s started to mature, he’s been more open to doing things a little bit different and this was a little bit of a different switch, going away from a Visible air product and now straight zoom air bag in the shoe, so we just had to tweak some things to get it right for him. I mean, he’s 6’8″, 265 lbs and he’s putting a lot of stress on the shoe. Usually we have wear tests that we do with all our athletes, and he wear tested it but during practice, they’re [athletes] not going as hard as they always go, so we just had to make a couple of tweaks to it just from a comfort standpoint.
What does Nike look for in an athlete to bring them into the Nike family?
I think it depends on the sport–I can talk about basketball. It depends on a lot of things–the individual, the character of the individual, what you already have in your stable of athletes, if you have a bunch of great guys but you need someone a little nasty and high flying and dunks all the time, you might wanna go with that–so it depends on what you already have. We try to work with the best of the best athletes, guys that are able to really do their thing on the court but also express themselves off the court and fit the Nike values that the company stands for and represents.
Is there an athlete that you would love to build a campaign around?
As I’ve gotten a little bit older, I can see things a little differently. Back in the day, it was by far Michael. Michael was the right mix–he didn’t wanna be like everybody else and I was the kind of kid that didn’t wanna be like everybody else. He’s not afraid to be different. Obviously everything he does he excels at and he just does it at a high level, so to me that was that.
But now, I’m actually seeing things a little different. I met a kid–I actually started a foundation to build basketball courts for underprivileged kids around the world. I built some courts for kids in Brazil, built some courts in Africa. When I [went] to Africa, I met a kid that became my inspiration and it confirmed that what I’m doing was the right thing to do. This kid was 17 years old and at age 10, both of his parents had passed away. His grandparents lived in another country. So from age 10 to 14, this boy raised himself on nine dollars a month, lived in a shack, and just barely made it, but he used school and he used basketball as an outlet to take up his time and better himself. And so at 14, there was a basketball academy that came to his city and one of the coaches ended up adopting him. Now he’s 17, he’s adopted and he has aspirations for playing in college. Kids like that are my inspiration–there’s athletes that have succeeded through things that most people can’t even imagine.
Why doesn’t Nike expand the Doernbecher project into more models more frequently [and more into Jordan Brand]?
The folks that run the Doernbecher project come and meet with Nike, then I try to get involved with the actual child designer and sit down with them and get them to understand why we do what we do so we can try to come out with the most compelling product. Some of the kids are just really really good because they just have great ideas, but then other kids….. As far as the program itself, because there are multiple shoes, I think the main goal is to make sure that there is as much success in each and every model. It’s meant to uplift and do what’s right for the kids themselves.
What was the shoe that got you started in the shoe game?
As a kid, I was kind of crazy with the shoe game–I didn’t know it was gonna be like that, that’s just kind of the way it was. I would always change clothes, I loved sports and even though we weren’t well off, I still had tennis shoes and without even knowing it, I was a shoe guy. So I would say that once I really started to understand that, that’s when it started.
I had a pair of Blazers back in the day, Nike had just came out with them. Actually, it wasn’t the Blazer at the time, it was the Bruin. I’ll never forget this…I was in a ball place in Oklahoma–I grew up in California, and Oklahoma was just country area but my grandparents lived there–and I opened this magazine. and everyday I would just look at this shoe, thinking that I needed to have it. I finally got it, but when everyone else started getting them, I thought that mine had to be different. I would color them and paint them up and do all these things.
Jordan Brand have all these new “packs”–the Fear Pack, Bel Airs–are you trying to direct that at the younger group of people who are just now getting interesting in Jordans or trying to keep people around who are already into it?
Again, I’m not at JB so I’m not really sure what their direction is but I would say it’s a little bit of both. There are a lot of young kids that aren’t familiar with the history of some of the Jordan styles or why they’re popular, so i think they’re trying to target that a little bit, but again having those stories provides you with the opportunity to create fresh points of views on retro projects…it’s a little bit of both. Capturing the younger generation, and making sure that those who are familiar with Jordans appreciate it to the next level. [With younger kids], I wanna educate them on what was hot back in the day so we see how we can make something hot today and it’s up to us to challenge ourselves. It’s just another challenge that we embrace.
Do you think it’s beneficial when Nike offers outsiders a look into their design process and what goes on in headquarters?
I hope it helps people because people can see the design of the shoes when they come out, but they don’t really know much more of how it came out and they don’t really have the forum to ask someone “why this” or “why that.” Hopefully it just provides some insight that allows them to respect the process of what we do. For me, there’s a lot of kids out there that just love sneakers and love sports–this industry is way different from what it used to be. If you love sports and you can get into this industry then you can be be a part of sports really, really fast. If you’re good in accounting, there’s room for you to work in Nike to work with numbers. Whatever you do well, this industry has opportunities for you because it’s such a big industry. There’s lots of opportunities to develop in this world.
Will [other countries] get the Kobe Prelude Pack?
The Prelude pack is a super, super tight pack, but I really don’t know. But what I will tell you is that there is a plan after the Prelude Pack to bring back a couple of retro Kobe’s.
Are the Kobe 9’s coming out in a low cut version as well?
Yes.
Back to Kobe–were there any other Jordan samples that he used to wear before he got his line made for him?
Yes, so that whole thing…Kobe was leaving adidas and in his contract in leaving adidas, they said that he couldn’t wear any one shoe for more than a three game period. we didn’t know at the time if Kobe was going to the Jordan side or with Nike, so what we did was both Nike Basketball and Jordan, and since [the adidas exit contract said] he can’t wear any one shoe for more than three games, we’ll just have a bunch of shoes ready for him. And with JB, which was where I was at the time, we did a 3, a 7, a 8, and a 9 which he never wore.
Are those ever going to come out?
You know, I don’t know. the Jordan guys…to me, they should bring them back. I’m not over at JB anymore, so I don’t know what their plans are for them, but I would if I was them [laughs].
Is Nike doing anything with Andrew Wiggins? [Editor's Note: Andrew Wiggins is a Canadian college athlete who plays basketball for the University of Kansas and is considered to be the top pick for the 2014 NBA Draft]
As of right now, no. I was thinking that he’s a college athlete, so we can’t do anything with him right now. i actually had the chance to see Andrew Wiggins when he was in eighth grade and he sat in on some focus groups, and even back then I was going around telling people: “This dude is the truth!” I was telling a bunch of people about him a couple of years ago, but it’ll be interesting to see this class that’s coming out now–they’re great athletes. Jabari Parker, there’s a lot of them. i love them because i got pretty close with them, so I’d love to see them become Nike Athletes one day but I don’t know yet.
You talked about retroing Kobes, but what about Lebrons?
I’ve been lobbying for that for a little bit and i’m dying to bring back the Zoom Generation, but we’ll see. We’re working on some things and we’re going to bring it over the top. To me, it’s time, but there’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen on that one.
Four years ago, the whole NSW Olympic Collection played off different graffiti artists around the world–what can we expect with the upcoming Olympics in Brazil?
This one really, is so football and soccer oriented. I’ll just put it this way, there’s an aesthetic that the soccer group is working on that is pretty bold. that’s really all I can say. Until it comes out can’t really say much. Again, being that we’ve got a lot of things coming out especially between January and June, I don’t want to divulge too much, but it’s bold and expressive–I’ll put it that way.
Why wasn’t LeBron [James] wearing the 11’s [earlier in the season]?
Actually, Lebron has some very, very specific needs. If you remember where he was over the last couple of years we had different air bags for shoes, and I think the great thing about Lebron is that he’s been a great athlete to work with. I think as he’s started to mature, he’s been more open to doing things a little bit different and this was a little bit of a different switch, going away from a [basic] air product and now straight zoom air bag in the shoe, so we just had to tweak some things to get it right for him. I mean, he’s 6’8″ and 265 pounds, and he’s putting a lot of stress on the shoe. Usually we have wear tests that we do with all our athletes, and he wear tested it but during practice, they’re not going as hard as they always go, so we just had to make a couple of tweaks to it just from a comfort standpoint.
Now that Kanye’s signing with adidas, is there a possibility of a Red October release?
To be honest with you, we’re not actually sure of what;s going to happen now. With the whole situation now and how it’s laid out, it’s not totally defined. I don’t wanna be premature and say what’s going to happen because we really don’t know.
Nike ID is a great program available in the US, but is it ever going to be marketed in Europe?
Interesting question, but again not a question that’s really in my world. Again, my world is truly product creation, so [first let me] give you guys an idea of what I do—I have a team of people that I work with. In our world, we have what’s called product marketing folk, product developers, and we have designers. in my team, we have a group of designers who actually are on pen and paper and are actually on the computer and look at product, and we design. products are designed based on information that they get from product marketing folks–people who will go out and talk to consumers and look at whatever sport they’re in, in my case basketball, and they’ll find out what are some of the new concepts that we can come up with or ideas that we might wanna address and they’ll communicate those ideas and well come up with a story line for it and well actually make it happen. Product developers actually take that product and work with our factories to make that shoe possible–so we have a two dimensional sample. That’s kind of the process and what I do.
When it comes to doing Nike ID, what I do is tell that department, “Hey I’m cool with you putting this [model] in the ID format,” or sometimes it’s
“No, I don’t want you using this material or That material.” I can’t tell you when Nike ID is gonna make it out this way [in Canada or in Europe], but I can tell you it is a major initiative.
Can we talk a bit about the Oregon shoe situation and the players involved? How are the shoes getting out and are there any consequences for the athletes?
This is an odd one for me. For instance, college athletes today–and this is my personal opinion–I think that there are a lot of programs out there that take advantage of college athletes. They’re bringing a lot of revenue in for schools and there’s a lot of college athletes that don’t have the means to do a lot–some people say they’re getting a free education and that’s good enough, But we look at what some of the universities are getting [in terms of revenue] and to me, I think there should be some sort of [exchange]. And I only say that because when an athlete happens to get something and chooses to do whatever he wants to do with it, it’s kind of on him but we kind of perpetuate him to do the wrong thing if we don’t help take care of him. I think in the situation of the Oregon players, they’ve been given some product that was obviously meant for them, they should protect it and treat it with respect, but they’re 18-19 year old kids, they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. There’s not much you can necessarily do to avoid it.
So in the situation of the two athletes, they paid the price–one got suspended for a whole season, so that’s a pretty big deal especially for an athlete who’s trying to get exposure and has aspirations to be on the next level. Then at the end of the day, what it ultimately does is it takes the whole thing where one bad apple spoils it for the rest–there’s going to be a lot less of that stuff going out there. Coaches are gonna be a lot less likely [to do these deals] because they don’t want their players suspended. You control it to the degree, but they’re young.