Something’s Off
Something’s Off documents a question.
In 2016, Virgil Abloh took ten of Nike’s most iconic sneakers and asked what actually made them iconic.
The Air Jordan 1.
The Air Max 90.
The Air Force 1.
The Presto.
Not as products —
but as systems.
What followed wasn’t a redesign.
It was an investigation.
Virgil pulled the shoes apart.
Sliced swooshes away.
Exposed foam.
Left tape, thread, and quotation marks visible.
Language became material.
Text became structure.
Each intervention was deliberate —
a way of shifting meaning
without erasing history.
This book traces that thinking in real time.
Prototypes.
Archive materials.
Text messages between Virgil and Nike designers.
You see how collaboration shaped the work —
not as hierarchy,
but as conversation.
Inspired by architecture,
and avant-garde practice,
Virgil treated each sneaker as industrial design
readymade sculpture,
and something wearable,
all at once.
The book itself mirrors that logic.
An open spine.
Swiss binding.
Nothing hidden.
The first half maps sneaker culture visually.
The second becomes a lexicon —
defining the people, places, ideas,
and references that shaped the project.
This isn’t nostalgia.
It’s documentation.
A record of how ideas move
between disciplines.
Between people.
Between culture and commerce.
Something’s Off isn’t about breaking rules for effect.
It’s about understanding them deeply enough,
to reframe them.
That’s why it stays on the table.