Gabriel Baer

CONVERSE  X  NIKE SB: 
PARIS OLYMPICS TWIN PACK

CONS rider Alexis Sablone designed Nike SB's Olympic skateboarding kits for the USA and Japan, along with a pair of chameleon-themed shoes: her signature Converse AS-1 Pro and a Nike SB Dunk Low. It was the first time CONS and Nike SB had come together on a footwear collection, and we took both teams to Paris to shoot them together.

BRIEF 
We needed content with the CONS team to promote the capsule, which launched just after the Paris Games. Converse handled the footwear story and Nike handled the kits and apparel. The story we wanted to tell was the partnership between the two skate teams and the scale of it. Having 20+ skaters together in Paris is unusual for a skate trip, and we wanted to get the Olympic energy that was all over the city at the time.

OUTCOME 
The shoes completely sold out. The twin pack was limited to 500 units and dropped at select skate shops and on SNKRS on August 2024, and each shoe released on its own a week later. The campaign ran on social, in skate shops nationwide and in Thrasher, and the collection was covered by Hypebeast, Highsnobiety, Complex and Sports Illustrated.

ROLE
I was Creative Lead at Converse and owned the Converse side of the story: what we wanted to capture in photo and video, and how it looked from behind the camera. The project had a million moving parts, including a run-and-gun shoot through Paris with about 30 people, and it came together because the two teams actually worked as one.

Director: Joe Bressler • Photographer: Alex Pires