PIGALLE AND NIKE, A STORY TOLD THROUGH BASKETBALL COURTS

The relationship between Nike and Pigalle began on a basketball court. That's not a saying. The courts they both built, first in Paris and then all over the world, have become a perfect example of a collaboration that goes beyond the product.

For the first contact between Stéphane Ashpool and Nike we have to go back to 2002, when the now French designer organized events for Christian Dior, Rick Owens and Nike. The first contact in the fashion world at least, because Ashpool had played basketball semi-professionally, the real reason behind their relationship. Ashpool relied on Nike once again for his next project, Pigalle, a store named after the neighborhood in which the designer had grown up.

Pigalle was part of PPP, a group that included artistic collectives such as PainOchoKolat, clubs like Le Pompon (which later became Casablanca) and even a children's basketball team. Shortly before the opening of the shop itself, the inhabitants of Pigalle were protesting in front of the city council of Paris against the city's proposal to build a parking lot in an abandoned lot, in Duperré street. Neighbors wanted a place where children could play. Ashpool took the lead and offered Nike their first collaboration, which followed a very different path from the one planned: Ashpool didn't want sneakers but a basketball court. Pigalle's neighbors and the local basketball teams painted a track in pastel colors that the Franco-Asian artist Yué "Nyno" Wu took on himself to decorate with the silhouettes of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Spike Lee and LeBron James, who attended the inauguration. Since then, Nike and Pigalle collaborations have followed a double directive, footwear and apparel, inspired by basketball and the new designs of the Duperré court.

In 2012, on the occasion of the new Pigalle collection, he commissioned the redesign to Ill Studio, an agency that had worked with Louis Vuitton, Converse and Supreme. The new shapes and colors, never seen on a basketball court, turned it into a social center as well as an Instagram success. The design was replicated on an indoor court created for the presentation of Nike's new collection with Pigalle, whom later adopted the Ill Studio seal as its own.

The studio also renovated the track, firstly by making a tribute to the work 'Sportsmen' by Kazimir Malevitch, and then by adding new colors and designs that explored the representation of this sport in different eras. Reinterpretations of a court created by and for a community.

The new collaboration between Nike and Pigalle keeps growing, and not only leaves Converse space, but also offers Beijing and Mexico City, far from Pigalle neighborhood, the opportunity to create new designs. The central idea is included in the motto of the new collection, "The Power of Sport to Move the World".