Celebrating 40 years of the AF1

Rewind back to December 2022 and I hosted my first event with size? and Nike.

 This was a big one for me, because although I’ve worked on plenty of campaigns, events and activations over the years, this campaign was… mine.

From concept to event, I planned it all, with the support of the wider team of course.

 So just to give you a back story, each year we have several campaigns which we work on with Nike. Some of these being inline launches and others being size? exclusive products. Nike launched a number of AF1’s in 2022 to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the AF1. To support the product launches and the anniversary, we proposed an event which featured an exhibition of exclusive, rare and pretty cool AF1’s from collectors in the size? community.

 If you know me, you know I’m the Queen of being late and leaving things to the last minute, but always managing to get things sorted, so why would the event be any different?

However, this wasn’t by choice, once we had sign off from Nike, the calendar only had a few available dates before Christmas, and we needed the event to be in 2022, considering it was the anniversary year.

 So, the planning started, I put out a story post on IG and waited for the collectors to get in touch and thankfully quite a few reached out. The talent team narrowed down the list and we ended up securing pairs from @allwhitenohype, @SneakerDenn, @RMkicks, @antmansw9, @Prestopian and @schopes

I wanted to have an interactive element at the event so I reached out to our good friends at Crep Protect and asked if we could have their cleaning station there on the night, so everyone could keep their kicks fresh.

Community is always a big focus for Nike, and they wanted to tap into the local London community and art, so after a little bit of brainstorming with the wider size? team, we reached out to super talented graffiti artist Mark Peachy, who created a piece of live art inspired by the history and roots of the AF1. Amazing right?

 To top it off we had Havana Club as our drinks sponsor, with not one, but two bars, because it’s thirsty work looking at trainers. We also had a DJ and the amazing @jessylaw as our panel talk host.

Oh and we had pizza’s floating around because being hungry at an event isn’t cute.

Sounds amazing right? And it was! It all went off without a hitch, but let me tell you something that the size? blog won’t.

I arrived at the event space – 15 Bateman Street in the heart of Soho at around 2pm, with the doors opening at 4pm… and was anything set up?

Of course not.

So, with the help of the wider team, we turned everything around in less than 2 hours. It felt like an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  

The guys laced more trainers than I could count and of course I decorated the space with artificial plants, because that’s what I’m good at. It was a tough decision deciding which fejka looked best in which corner, but I’m pretty sure I pulled it off.

The clock struck 4pm, or should I say someone’s apple watch beeped and the doors opened, and we had a little crowd waiting outside, which is always a great sign.

My biggest concern for this event is that we wouldn’t keep the footfall. It was the last shopping weekend before Christmas and I had a feeling most men would be stood outside a jewellery store, trying to get last minute Christmas presents for their girlfriends. 

Also, once people have seen everything at an exhibition, they tend to leave and see what else is going on in London. Fortunately, with the cleaning station, live graffiti art and panel talk (and maybe free drinks), people seemed to stick around, socialise and network and we ended up having to kick people out when the doors closed at 9pm.

 Mission completed, Nike were happy, size? were happy and my amazing work was called out in one of the main JD meetings the following Monday.

Thanks to everyone that came down, showed their face and their support. I appreciate it.

 Cya at the next one