John Kim 
Part of the Nike Skateboarding Eric Koston 2 Media Launch Experience included an extended sit-down with the man of the hour, Eric Koston, and the designer behind the sequel, Shawn Carboy. Both were ready and waiting to fill us in on the journey from Koston One to Koston 2, but this time around, we prepared a broad range of questions that didn’t focus entirely on the shoe – mainly because we already talked about the design of the shoe back in October of 2012. So what could there be to talk about? There’s some interesting info spilled by Koston and Carboy, so read on below.
So what could we talk about, if not completely about the Koston 2? Well, plenty, if you calculate in the whole “The Legend Grows” ad with Tiger Woods and other Nike A-Listers, being the “Michael Jordan” of skate, the history of Nike SB as a whole, the future of Nike SB inside and outside the walls in Beaverton. Wish we had more time to chat more, but we’re confident that we’ll cross paths again. Read our interviews below, starting with our chat with Eric Koston, and check out the Nike Koston 2 right now on Nikestore.com.
Sneaker News: What’s your sneaker rotation outside of skating?
Eric Koston: Free Runs. The new ones just came out on Nike iD with the Flywire – I wanted to make one but haven’t had a chance to yet. Pretty much any model of the Free Run…Flyknits – the ones on your feet are in pretty awesome condition!
SN: Yeah, kept these one ice for a year and broke them out at just the right time. [Wearing the HTM x Nike Flyknit February 2012 release]
EK: I was wondering how they looked that good…but yeah, I just got the HTM Chukka. I got a good “in” at Mercer so that’s how I got ’em! They’re so sick and i’m almost afraid to wear them. All the Flyknits these days – even the new Lunar One+ is sick. I wear Janoskis too.
SN: Have you tried skating in Flyknits?
EK: Haha definitely not yet, don’t think I will.
SN: But who knows – that’s the beauty of Flywire because all the heat we just mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg.
EK: Oh for sure – I don’t know how they would make something like Flyknit durable enough for skate, but it’s Nike and they’re going to push the envelope.
SN: So it seems you like that low-pro look with footwear?
EK: Yeah, definitely, but mostly because after skating, you just want to wear something comfortable and light. Sometimes slides too man, those new Solarsoft Mules with the Woven are amazing.
SN: Obviously comfort is important to skating – what’s the most uncomfortable shoe you’ve ever skated in?
EK: (Long pause) I’m thinking like twenty years back to the Airwalk 720. Those were my dress shoes, but when I stepped on a board, I couldn’t feel the board! I broke them in after walking around in them in a year, but even when they were worn in – I could not skate in them at all. I only got them because all the top guys were skating in Airwalks. Board feel is so important and I just could not get it to go with those 720s.
SN: There were some notable upgrades from Koston One to Koston 2 that you can’t really see, since the shoe is so minimal in design. Where does the feedback come from? Is it directly from you, the other guys on the SB team, or is there a wider wear-test process that goes on with other amateurs or hobbyists?
EK: Yeah other skaters at Nike, and even kids who wear them – I see them a lot wherever I go and they’ll say this or that. Even the retailers provide feedback as well – they’ll come up to me and say a few things. With the 2 we got to be more creative because the [Koston] One is gonna stick around – it’s that original one that we have covered, so with the 2 we’re trying for that different direction.
SN: What’s your initial reaction when you hear things like “Eric Koston is the Michael Jordan of skateboarding?
EK: Haha it’s crazy man. Like, I still don’t believe it, because there’s only one Michael Jordan. It’s pretty wild! Am I? I don’t know.
SN: Being called the ‘Michael Jordan’ of anything means more than just being the best at that thing, doesn’t it?
EK: Yeah for sure, if I can have that impact in that sport then that’s awesome, and if I can achieve what he has, then great!
SN: Well it seems like Nike agrees with that statement, because Nike went the extra mile for this ad – definitely one of the more star-studded Nike ads in a while. An Owen Wilson cameo would’ve been nice.
EK: Haha for sure. With Kyrie, Neymar, Allyson, and Tiger, it was pretty awesome to do. When I heard they were going to participate, I was floored, honored, a bunch of things. We definitely had fun with it and it got better as it got goofier.
SN: It’s great to see SB get more shine, but ten years ago, Nike SB was sorta like the black sheep in skate. When you were with eS, what was your opinion on Nike finally establishing itself in skateboarding?
EK: Well they made a little run before that and it didn’t work out so well, but the next time around – I actually saw the shoe before SB was even around, mostly through Gino Iannucci. I skated for Girl and he was with Chocolate and they had the same distribution, so we were together and he said “yeah i’m getting on Nike”, and I was like “Woah, really? What’s that gonna be like?”. So he was out here shooting something and he had some Jordan 1s. He was skating in some Air Jordan 1s – the Black and Royal, and I was losing my mind! I was like “what are you doing – you’re skating in those?”. Even though I rode for eS, I wanted a pair of the Black/Royals so bad – just to chill in those and wear around.
Then he pulled out the sockliner and it the Zoom bag in it and the forefoot piece, so I was pretty surprised. But they did it right, and I remember the Blazers as well before they released. They did it right because Dunks and Blazers were skate shoes, but not officially “skate shoes”.
SN: Right – Dunks, Jordan 1s, and Blazers were skate shoes for guys who didn’t skate for a particular brand.
EK: Yeah – when I first started skating, there was a Bones Brigade documentary, and all those guys – Powell-Peralta, Tony Hawk, Lance Mountain, Steve Caballero – they ALL skated in Air Jordan 1s and even in those videos, because it was just the perfect skate shoe.
SN: Last time we talked about the shoe, you said the design process was like a Porsche, where one doesn’t really differ from the next, but with upgrades that make big impacts. Do you ever see the Koston line in the future go a bit off course with classic skate-shoe design, like how the Air Jordan shoes were so different from the rest?
EK: Maybe. We’re only two models deep but there’s definitely room for something creative down the road. I love the direction the shoe is going in now. I love the updates and Shawn [Carboy] is great at what he does and I trust what he does. But I like the shoes to be like – you wear them, and they’re so comfortable, you forget about them.
SN: Do you remember the E-Cue and the URL from back in 2003? Those were like…the anti-Koston.
EK: Yes definitely, but I don’t think I ever skated in them. They looked a little tough to skate in. They just didn’t look like a very skate-able shoe. Nike always wants to make a concept car, and they should. Back then, all the bells and whistles were on the outside and you wanted to show everything – out on the hood to see it all. But that’s not what we’re doing now.
SN: So golf is clearly a theme for the shoe – when did that start and why is it so important to you?
EK: You know, I’ve been golfing for so long, and people just don’t seem to know that! I’ve been golfing forever. Like the first shoe, we did the Kobe, because i’m such a huge fan of his and of basketball. Golf is another thing that we want to tell a story with.
SN: Will we see like the Koston x Tiger shoe like the Koston x Kobe last year?
EK: Ah I wish. Hopefully – that would be dope.
SN: Something along the lines of that red golf shoe in the The Legend Grows video?
EK: That red shoe is just a promo but it’s going to release later. Ideally it was going to be around this time, but manufacturing is a bit different so we couldn’t get it on time. It has that crazy snakeskin upper with Tiger Sunday Red and it’s on the Lunar golf-spike with a real tech-ed out sole. That one’s not going to be sold – it’s just a promo for friends and myself.
SN: Fair to assume the Koston 3 is already in the works. Any chance you can give us a hint?
EK: Would love to, but they’ll kill me haha. But there’s a lot of stuff for SB coming out, like the Project BA, P-Rod’s next one, and some other neat things that even I as a fan of Nike am really impressed by.
Sneaker News: The Nike Koston 2 and golf – how do you combine the two?
Shawn Carboy: So we have the Koston 2 IT coming out in a couple of weeks – and it’s actually the Swingtip sole. They (Nike Golf) came to us and said “we really like the drop-in and it makes sense for us – would be alright with us using your sockliner and your last?” and we said “sure”. So they came up with the Swingtip after we did the Koston 1, so when we were doing the Koston 2, we went up to them and said we wanted to do something cool with the Koston 2 collection with the tooling we helped inspire you.
SN: That’s the most interesting thing about this – that you’d never think Skate and Golf would come together because they seem so mutually exclusive from one another in design and culture.
SC: Totally. You think about the height of focus when you look at your feet, and golf is so anally retentive because it’s all about the swing and where your feet are, and skateboarding is just as anal with its movements.
SN: Right, there’s a ton of dexterity and balance involved in both sports so there is indeed some sort of overlap between the two.
SC: Most definitely. There’s a lot in common with the two.
SN: It almost defines the friendship Koston has with Tiger Woods. Quite an odd relationship, but Tiger sorta brought golf to the masses and made it less of a country-club sport, while Koston helped skateboarding “grow up” a bit.
SC: Totally true, and the funny thing about that is that Tiger used to skate! Eric said Tiger talked about skating. Totally crazy when he mentioned skating bowls in the behind-the-scenes part of the video, but it’s authentic so that makes it even more awesome.
SN: Without going too much off on a tangent – you also designed the P-Rod VI, correct? How do you distinguish one from the other because it seems like the demand of firm Lunar cushioning and ventilation is the same between Koston and P-Rod, especially with the shoes being so simple in design?
SC: Good question. With Eric and Paul, we distinguish the two with technology. With Eric, it’s all about the low ride and the sockliner as well as the board feel. P-Rod’s shoe has a bit more showing on the outsole with the perforations and the Huarache heel-clip, but Koston’s is all about an “inside out” design. For him it’s all about the ultimate feel, so we came up with this notion of “Protect and connect” which combines elements of maximum protection with complete board feel.
SN: Where was this “inside out” design concept in the earlier generations of skate shoes?
SC: Do you remember the trend in the mid-90’s – around ’96? The shoes we skated in – the Blazers and Bruins – had nothing to them, so we used to stuff the tongues because the last thing you want to do in skate is to bruise the metatarsals on your feet because you’d be sidelined for days, so that’s where the double-tongue trend came in.
But these days, kids are learning so much faster, landing tricks at faster rates. Because they’re getting better, the need for that tongue padding decreased. Kids are getting better so they’re getting more confident and they’ll try a trick knowing that they won’t injure as much.
Back then, skateboarding shoes weren’t designed by skateboarders. But in the last 10 years, with guys like Hunter (Muraira) and Kevin Iwamura and people from the industry to help guide, and with Nike with the technology, it’s like the best of both worlds. This mesh (on the Koston 2) is from the Lunarglide. This whole shoe breathes and helps self-regulate temperature.
SN: Koston said earlier that in one skate session, his foot would be entirely drenched with the One.
SC: Yeah, because the whole thing was laminated with this TPU, but because it was one piece, we couldn’t minimize the area. So we were working on this new material, and leather usually stretches out with sweat, but this doesn’t stretch out.
SN: Going back to the Lunarglide – the midsole of the Koston 2 has that Lunarglide profile.
SC: That was actually tasked to us by Nike. We had to make it [Lunar] more visible so when people see it, they know it’s Lunar. When we first introduced Lunar with the Koston, I admit, we were a bit timid. Eric was afraid we were going to go overboard, and skaters are very conservative by nature. But after the Koston, we could really guide and show them [skater] where we wanted to go. The sockliner was actually adapted from the LunarGlide so when I wear them, I feel like I can go running in them.
Now, we’re in discussions with other guys in the brand, and we now sit in meetings with the other guys to talk about the new and next Lunar as a whole. For me, it was a humbling experience because you have all these dudes in there that have been there and even created Lunar. It’s pretty awesome sitting there with Rob Dolan (Nike Running) and Leo Chang (Nike Basketball).
SN: That’s a pretty amazing collaboration of Running, Basketball, and Skate right there!
SC: Hell yeah. Amazing.
SN: Going back to “The Legend Grows” – it was a pretty star-studded ad. Kyrie, Neymar, Allyson, Tiger, and so on. So clearly Nike is placing more emphasis on skate – is there a skate-exclusive technology in the works?
SC: [A big grin forms on Shawn’s face] YES. And…I can’t tell you anything about it. Spring 2014 – there is a shoe that we’re working on that is the ultimate “feel” shoe. We came up with this new “thing” for us that’s so unique that it’ll change what people think about what they need in a skate shoe. Even in the 2000’s, there was really a “soccer-mom” approach to shoes in that shoes had to be big and protective and had no range of flexibility and becomes a tank. At the same time, if you strip it down too much there’s no protection. So we’re looking at a shoe like the Free Run and thinking – how do we make a shoe that you slip on that’s so comfortable, but performs at a high rate?
SN: One of the major points of “The Legend Grows” is that many refer to Eric as “the Michael Jordan of skate”. As the designer of his shoes, does that put any pressure on you?
SC: Sometimes. But the good thing is that i’ve known Eric for a while and my number one goal is to give him what he needs. The great thing about Eric is that he has a great eye in what he likes and what he looks for. He brings a lot to the table and he gives me the confidence and I give him the confidence.
SN: Nike definitely emphasizes the athlete-designer cooperation – that’s what separates Nike for all other brands.
SC: Totally.
SN: Going off topic a bit – you weren’t with Nike when it officially started SB in 2002. What sort of expectations did you have for them?
SC: You know, i’ll be honest – I was…timid. Just a little concerned. When Nike first came in, they didn’t do a great job. But they’ve done an awesome job at really listening to the core. Skateboarders are super-conservative and sometimes they need to be drawn along. Like hey, this may feel uncomfortable, but when we get to where we’re going, we’re all going to be better for it. It comes down to kids, the skateboarders- if we’re not making good shoes for them, then there’s no point. If we’re not focusing on the athlete, then there’s no point.
Many thanks to Eric, Shawn, and the Nike Skateboarding team.
