I’m humbled to have been chosen to be among such elite bloggers. Today the New York Times did a little piece on us. Pick it up on newsstand now or you can check the full article online.
Thanks for all the support throughout the years! You guys have been fantastic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/fashion/straight-talk-a-new-breed-of-fashion-bloggers.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
Today in Los Angeles Nike released information on the release of the Nike MAG, featured 22 years ago in the Back to the Future II movie. I received a phone call today from Tinker Hatfield and Tiffany Beers to talk about the release of this iconic shoe and why this new initiative is so special.
See my conversation with Tinker & Tiffany below.
So the first question I have is, I want to know, why have you guys decided to release the shoe now, like, why now?
(Tinker)
We started this project roughly five years ago, based off of our desire to, I think, develop the shoe, because we knew that there was some demand for it in the sneaker world, but also because we originally wanted to do something to help the Michael J. Fox Foundation and Parkinson’s Disease. So that started five years ago, and we are simply releasing the shoe now because it’s ready, at least ready enough. The sooner the better, so that people gain more awareness for Parkinson’s Disease and also the money that’s going to be raised will be very helpful, too.
How did you guys keep such a monstrous project under wraps for so long and release it at such a last minute, how did you guys go about that?
(Tinker)
(Laughs) Well, for the first year and a half or so, the only two people that really knew anything about it were myself and Tiffany Beers and, just to clarify Tiffany’s role, she is the developer for this re-issue, this redesign of the movie shoe. So she’s been working with the engineers and she’s done some engineering herself, as well as just follow-through, going back and forth to Asia to make sure the samples were coming along. We were the only two that knew much about it, and then we spoke — when we had a decent sample, we then approached Mark Parker, the CEO of Nike, and told him about our idea. He greenlighted the thing for further development and for more expensive processes and ultimately that little group grew to — just really in the last few months was this project really revealed to our own promo staff. That’s really how it stayed so quiet, at least up until it got revealed to our own internal promotions group, and then they’ve done just a remarkable job of conversing with their connections and making sure that people respected the privacy until the time was right.
That’s awesome. When did you guys decide to bring Michael J. Fox on board and what was his reaction when you told him this was happening?
(Tinker)
I went with Mark Parker and Pam McConnell. We have a good connection with Frank Marshall, who’s a producer and director for lots of Universal Studios stuff. Because of that, we were able to go have lunch with Michael J. Fox just a few weeks ago and tell him about the whole thing. He was overjoyed, and realized how this was going to benefit his foundation and was emotional and happy, and then agreed to go on the David Letterman Show. That’s how it got rolled out.
That’s amazing. So, when you guys designed the shoe about 22-23 years ago, did you ever have plans to release it or was it just for the movie?
(Tinker)
It was just for the movie. We designed the shoe, built roughly ten pairs for use in the movie and we got a couple of pairs back, if I’m not mistaken. And then the other pairs went missing, I think, for the most part.
(Laughs)
We have so many other projects that, we did the movie and then went on with our normal business. It really became, over time, obvious to us that there was something special about the movie. That particular scene in the movie where the shoes were introduced by Marty McFly, you know, where he put them on in the future?
Right.
And then this petition popped up a while back — just everything all lumped together sort of indicated to us that maybe if we went ahead and made the shoes and sold them that we could make it a sizeable contribution to charity, and in this case the charity is the Michael J Fox Foundation.
Do you remember the original influence for the design of the shoe back then? What were your influences?
(Tinker)
It was a unique project because normally, sitting down and collaborating with athletes there’s usually a really strong functional purpose behind all of the design work that we do, as you well know. But, all of a sudden, being asked to design a shoe for a fantasy world, a future fantasy world, it kind of took the shackles off and was kind of fond to think about what could you do if money and time were no object, or technology for that matter. The real inspiration was really more about trying to understand the script, the movie, the character, Marty McFly’s character and then trying to design something that was just unlike any other shoe at the time. What’s been mentioned today and we’ve noticed ourselves is that all these years later, the shoe still has a futuristic look and still seems unique. I guess maybe we were a little bit lucky.
How much work did you have to revise for the new version? Did you guys have to go back and re-tool everything, or was it kind of like an easy transition, how much work was actually involved?
(Tinker)
I’m going to just say upfront that there was nothing easy about this project, and then I’m going to let Tiffany talk to you about some of what it took to bring this shoe, essentially to the marketplace.
(Tiffany)
To my surprise, there was nothing left from the original make except for the few archived shoes that we had, so we literally had to start from scratch, completely over on the entire thing, basically explore the whole thing and figure it out again and do it in a way that it still duplicated the original as close as we could but became a little bit more durable and wearable. The first shoes were really built for a few wears and now we wanted to build it so that it could last a little bit longer.
Oh yeah, that was my follow-up question, if the actual original shoe was functional or not, so you’re saying it wasn’t really functional, it was only for a few wears, right?
Yeah, I’ll let Tinker speak to that.
(Tinker)
We built the shoes to essentially hold up for just four, five or six wearings, or whatever how many scenes it was going to take, and then the shoes were pretty much done. We had to engineer some lighting into those shoes back in the 1980s, when there wasn’t digital lighting or special little tiny cool lightbulbs or anything. It was really what I would call a quick — it was kind of a project where I would say that we had to come up with a futuristic design using very low-tech components.
(Laughs)
It was a difficult project and we delivered it on time to the movie and then, through the magic of movies, they made the shoe do what it did, and — they did light up, but it required a big battery pack that was in the back pocket of Marty McFly’s pants, which you weren’t supposed to see, and then there were wires down the legs of his pants, and the shoes had holes cut in the bottom, just different things that had to be done in order to complete the movie. All of that had to be miniaturized and put into some kind of form that would fit in a very low-profile, very minimalistic type of shoe. Tiffany,in particular, and a bunch of other teams really came up with some good solutions and over time we were able to achieve what we wanted. Like I said before, we are releasing this shoe now simply because it’s ready. And so, the sooner the better, again, for Parkinson’s.
Awesome. Thank you guys. One last question: were there any major design challenges for the re-issue?
I would say, of course, the electronics. Most of us think that electronics are second nature, you see them in everything, but really you don’t see a lot of sophisticated electronics in things that need to contort or bend or undergo a lot of shock and/or stress. That was not easy to engineer and I would say that was the singlemost difficult thing to do. Tiffany can give you more details on that. I just wanted to add that Mark Parker, our CEO, who was also involved in the original process of concepting the original movie shoe, we would take him samples over the course of time and he has a keen eye, he is a collector and has a collector mentality, really a sort of great sense of detail, so we kept bringing samples to him and he became our kind of go-to guy to make sure we were on the right track in getting us as close to the original as possible. Tiffany can now talk a little bit about the electronics because I think it’s actually an interesting story.
(Tiffany)
We really had to work hard to get it shrunk down and put into the shoe because it wasn’t only like a lot of other lighted shoes that there’s lights at the bottom only, but this had lights in the strap, it was in the upper, it was in the heel counter, pretty much we had to put electronics everywhere we could possibly fit them. Because the design was so minimal and so futuristic, it was really challenging. We did finally get it to work out and were still were able to – to your earlier question, we didn’t change much from the original. i mean, we had to shave things off. A couple millimeters here, a couple millimeters there, but nothing that’s super noticeable. As you see, the shoe is pretty much identical to the original shoe. We did add a few comfort features, like a little more foam here, a little more foam there, things like that, but overall, it’s an almost-identical replica.
Were there any new technologies that you used that are not found in other Nike products?
Well, Tiffany had to work with various engineering companies to basically put together connections for wires that were resitant to moisture. This whole notion that things have to bend and flex and move and take impact when you wear things on your feet. I think that they did things there that people haven’t done before.
(Tiffany)
We used some learnings from other industries, like some of our wire were from helicopters. I mean, it was super-precision electronics, some of the stuff was. I don’t know that it’s anything we’ve used in any other shoe.
OK. (laughs)
Even the exterior main material is a little bit different than the original, because it has to withstand the more abraision, has to be more UV stable. A number of things we normally do in the course of shoe design here at Nike that wasn’t done in the movie, because, again, it wasn’t going to go to the marketplace. Those things are unique to this shoe, and it’s kind of like whoever — there’s going to be a limited number of people that get these shoes, and whoever gets them are getting something pretty special, very unique, with a good story.
Are there any plans to ever release them as a regular release later on in the future?
No. To preserve the value of what people will spend for these shoes and the money that will — and hopefully, again, that’ll be as much as we can get for each shoe, so the amount of money to charity is the most we can come up with — In order to preserve that, we’re not going to re-release this shoe and we’re not going to commercialize it any further. What you will see, though, probably sometime in the future is that there will be some– this shoe has already helped inspire some unique design features on some new shoes and we are committed to designing shoes in the future that do come alive and do sense your body and do certain things, so this is a precursor to the future of probably all athletic shoes we design.
Great. And will you be wearing a pair yourself?
Will I be wearing a pair?
Yeah.
(Laughs)
Well, I don’t know if I’m gonna get a pair or not, to be honest.
(Laughs)
Our policy here is to not give away shoes, to treat these shoes as true vehicles for change in the fight against Parkinson’s Disease and, therefore, we’re really limiting, or actually, eliminating the whole practice of just giving shoes away to VIP’s and whatnot. People have to bid for them, they need to pay for them or do something really, really super-special to get them. Whether or not I get a pair remains to be seen.
(Tiffany)
Yeah, we’ll see if designing the actual shoe qualifies.
(Laughs)
That should qualify but I know it’s for a good cause and I think it’s great. I think people are gonna be really excited to kind of get their hands on them tonight.
We’re all getting these email messages and people are going crazy trying to figure out how to get a pair of shoes. You got your standard crowd who are used to getting things because they’re VIP’s and they’re not gonna get them.
I know a lot of people that are going to be upset if they don’t get them, but I mean — no, it’s for a good cause, When things are for causes it’s better off to pay the money and get it if you really want them, you know?
(Tinker)
I’ve just simply been telling people that if you want a pair, you have to bid, and that’s just sort of the end of it. -Marcus Troy
Special thanks to Jane, Matt, Mario,Tinker & Tiffany.
Marcus Troy chose two winners from the Mavericks Project to accompany him to New York City, in order to design the Maverick Project Bespokes. Carlos Sanchez, Tim Rodrigues and Marcus Troy spent hours working with IZ from Nike Sportswear at 21 Mercer Street designing the new Bespokes.
The approach was to create a shoe that would be timeless and reflect the Maverick spirit of its designers. Each shoe is defined by one detail that directly speaks to the personality of these individuals.
The three of them decided on using waterproof wool for the upper, leather for the tongue and Kevlar detailing. “The shoe was meant to look grown” says Carlos Sanchez, one of the winners of the experience. Tim commented that he wanted the shoe to be classy and original. Total of 3 shoes were designed for The Marcus Troy Experience Bespoke session. Each shoe is personalized on the dubre with the name of the winners.
Marcus enlisted Vince Tsang of On & Beyond to capture the essence of the shoe through photography. The photos clearly capture the ideals and thoughts behind the Maverick project Bespokes. Marcus’s vision was to create “a real man’s” type of shoe, inspired by the utilitarian and fashionable trends of today, but with the aged and vintage feel of the past.
The retrospective video was also shot by Vince Tsang, who captured Marcus in his element, discussing the Maverick Project and The Marcus Troy Experience.
Last year my friends from DC shoes were in Montreal for some product meetings and we made plans to possibly meet up in the city for some drinks. We met up that night in their hotel and my friend Hommy Diaz, Global Lifestyle Merch & Design Manager showed me some new items they had coming out in the spring. He pulled out a smooth looking black shoe out of his bag that he called THE STUDIO.
The silhouette of this shoe and material story really sparked my interest. I felt like it was a great departure from what I knew of DC shoes. It looked classic, felt great and the minimalistic branding got me really interested in telling this story. I got really excited when I saw the Black Studio shoe, so I guess Hommy neglected to tell me about the several other great color ways. After he pulled all of them out of his bag, I knew I had to share this story with all of you about the Bounce Suede material, the heritage Pill branding and 7 colors to represent the 7-point star in the iconic DC logo. And I knew I could not do it alone. So I decided to enlist several friends that I respected to help me tell the Studio shoe story.
I decided to call upon 6 Cultural participants that I know and respect to help me tell this story through a visual essay that I call MY STUDIO SESSION. I chose these individuals based on their involvement in creating original content, passion for photography and good taste. I thought it would be a great idea for them to interpret their vision of the shoe through imagery and visuals. As content creators and cultural participants we often use the world as our STUDIO when documenting our lives and or creating content online. I wanted to take it a step further and have these well-respected individuals pick a colour that resonated with them and go out into the world and use THE STUDIO DC Life shoe as their personal subject.
In this visual essay you will see the vision of Joshua Kissi, Vincent Tsang, Eric Johnson, Phillip Annand, William Yan, Sean Quincy and yours truly Marcus Troy.
Welcome to our Studio Session presented by DC LIFE.
My Studio Session Picture.
Visit the full project here
http://marcustroy.com/mystudiosession
This project would not have been possible without Shane Stirling and Bobby, Brendan & Matt from the UC. A special thanks to Hommy Diaz and DC LIFE for believing in the vision.
I’M CHALLENGING YOU!!!
The Marcus Troy Mavericks Project APP is now available in the itunes store.
The Maverick project was a huge success and I want to thank everyone who contributed their personal stories. I want to introduce to all of you the continuation of the project which now lives on The Marcus Troy app.
PART II of this Project is more about the people in your lives that you consider to be MAVERICKS.
This time I want you all to take pictures of the people in your life that you consider to be a Mavericks and UPLOAD them to the app via the SHARE button.
The Maverick Project APP will load as you click on the bottom of the APP on the Nike x Marcus Troy logo. You can read all the stories and share with the world.
*****Every mobile upload will be entered to win a trip with me to NYC to design a pair of NIKE AIR BESPOKES *****
I challenge you! Start NOW!!
I’m extremely proud to share with you guys this new initiative that I’ve been working on for the past couple of months. The Mavericks Project is about telling stories about key individuals that have been identified as Mavericks. I’ve also used this platform to allow all of you to share your stories of being a maverick.
A couple months ago The Nike Sportswear team shared with me their upcoming fall & winter inspiration and I now have the opportunity to share it with all of you. There were a couple of very interesting elements about the stories that stayed with me, besides the infamous Destroyer jacket and the Lunar Wood’s being super dope, the message or idea was about being a maverick and highlighting the defining moment. The stories profiled individuals, athletes and groups who embodied the Maverick spirit.
By definition a maverick is an independent-minded person, a freethinking individual who refuses to conform, they are eccentric, original and value freedom.
The first people they identified as Mavericks were some of the running crews from around the world like the original running mavericks called The Athletic West Club, The Bridgerunners from New York, The Run Dem Crew from London and The Rock Trax Running Crew from Tokyo.
I felt like the stories were compelling so I wanted to share them with guys, but beyond a blog post so I created this new digital space as its platform.
The story also speaks to my sensibilities and falls inline with my philosophies that we all have the maverick spirit within in us and it’s just about discovering it.
Mavericks are so much more, their lifestyle, their actions, their passions and hobbies are all a reflection of what makes them a maverick. Eventually we will all realize a defining moment that will shape our lives forever and define us as mavericks.
As you peruse through this new digital space you will be able to learn about some of these mavericks see some new products and watch some insightful videos about these individuals. A very exciting component about this space is that you will also be able to share your story as a future maverick. I want you to tell me what you’re about, what’s your defining moment, what you want to be known for or even what you have accomplished.
I look forward to reading all your stories, sharing them with people from around the world and spreading inspiration.
Please enjoy,
May the maverick spirit be with you!
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Thank you to the team that worked night and day to make this happen! You know who are are.
Last year around this time I was in the streets shooting for a special project that I can now share with you guys. I was hired by Nylon Magazine as a photographer to capture some of my cities most stylish and uniquely dressed people for a follow up to their 2006 book, city-dwellers, STREET.
The New Nylon Book of Global Style called Street View is now on bookshelves all across the world. The book shares great imagery and street style from some of the worlds most stylish cities such as Barcelona, New York, LA, London, Stockholm, Tokyo & Montreal. I scoured the streets of Montreal to bring you guys street styles & style inspiration from some of the stylish people of my city. I’m really proud to share this moment with you guys and I hope you get a chance to view the finish product.
If you get a chance you can pick up the book in store or online.
A couple days ago I was approached by Levi’s to collaborate with them on a their iconic trucker denim jacket.
The process was pretty exciting, they wanted me to submit some artwork that they would screen print onto the iconic piece.
This collaboration is part of their Levi’s Workshop series that they are activating all around the country. The first stop was San Francisco and I got the opportunity to get in and make it happen.
I wasn’t sure about the parameters but I knew I had a bit of leeway to be creative and submit a few color prints. Printing on a denim jacket brought me right back to the early 90’s when this trend was really popular. I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce to the world some ideas and thoughts that have been bubbling inside of me for years.
I envisioned the jacket looking vintage but I wanted it to feel timeless, I wanted the prints to look and feel like the early 90’s bootleg luxury prints. I wanted to recreate the nostalgia of my cousin painting on my jeans when I was a kid, I just wanted it to look and feel like we did it ourselves.
I called up Bryan Espiritu from The Legends League an extremely talented artist who I work with and respect to conceptualize this idea. I knew with his talent and my vision we would be able to execute this concept precisely for this piece. B.E was extremely excited about the project and we worked all night to make sure everything came out to our liking.
I took this opportunity to introduce to you guys the concept of ARMOIRE, which is a culmination of ideas, thoughts and experiences I’ve been living with my whole life.
Armoire is a look into my mind and into my closet, it’s about ideas, products, retail and experiences. I will keep you posted on the development of this concept.
The pictures above are from the workshop in San Francisco where ED and his team are washing the screen sand some of the transparencies preparing to print. We made sure to keep the prints a bit distressed to give it that vintage feel.
Levi’s will be producing 5 of these jackets, 2 of which will be coming to me, and 3 more that will be available to the public. You guys will get a chance to get your hands on 1 of 3 jackets trough the Levi’s Workshop Blog.
I’m extremely happy that I am able to lend my thoughts and ideas to brands to create tangible products for you guys. I know the project is limited but I promise you there will be more to come.
The Levi’s Workshop officially closes in San Francisco on Saturday and then it will open in New York City as a photo studio in October.
So here you have it The Very Limited Edition Levi’s x Armoire by Marcus Troy Collaboration.
Keep in mind, the Levi’s® Print Shop completely disappears come September, so these jackets will become instant custom relics, the final project from this amazing two month long undertaking.
All you have to do is send an email to info@levisworkshops.com with the words ‘MT Print Shop Trucker’ in the subject line. Three of these will be chosen randomly as winners. If that’s you, the jacket is yours!
Good luck!
Special Thanks To ED, DREW and Kelsey.
A special thank you to Bryan Espiritu!
Enjoy!
On August 17th in Las Vegas I was guest on an expert panel about social media. The goal was to educate brands and retailers on the ins and outs of Social Media. This convention was held during the The Project Las Vegas Trade Show.
The seminar was put together by HauteLook and Tweethouse in collaboration with Project.
The panel was amazing! I want to give a special thank you to the rest of the amazing people I shared the stage with.
@JessBerlin @thomasknoll @sbroback @jaclynrjohnson @tinch @webcite
The Tweet house is a celebration of the Real-Time Web and Twitter’s pervasive role within it. It brings together those who are creating and evangelizing the technologies that are defining the future.
As a confluence of hundreds of key players in the entertainment and tech industries, the Tweet house showcases collaboration, creativity, and technology in an informal and festive environment.
From the Consumer Electronics Show to the Sundance Film Festival, the Tweet House is where Silicon Valley and Hollywood converge.
If you get a chance pick up the new issue of Complex Magazine which is on newsstands today, you will see a handsome dashing young man styled in Louis Vuitton. I’m joking about the handsome young man thing, but I am very proud to be featured in this issue! If you guys could only see the jacket I had on, OMG! It is crazy.
Thanks for the continued support, I love you guys.
eyewear by warby parker
leather parka by louis vuitton
sweater by louis vuitton
jeans by comune
sneakers by generic surplus
Photography by Martien Mulder; Styling by Kelly McCabe; Grooming by Dax Anderson
The weather is cooling and the ridiculously wealthy/spoiled are back from their beach houses to clog up brunch spots, so you know it’s time to start thinking about your fall wardrobe. To prepare for one of our favorite seasons, Complex presents a trend preview that includes trench coats, black leather, corduroy, and wholly monochromatic ensembles, among others. We teamed up with six online arbiters of style and design—Sean Sullivan (the impossible cool.), Marcus Troy, Myles Henry Tipley (MYLESHENRYBLOG), Justin R. Saunders (jjjjound), Phillip Annand (The Madbury Club), and William Yan—and asked them to step out from behind their laptops to showcase the looks. Not only does each gentleman embody a different trend, but we’ve also collaborated with them for exclusive content inspired by their respective sites. So stay tuned for those, but in the meantime, just peep the feature (and the future!) already… via Complex
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