NIKE VIOTECH DUNK AS SEEN BY PATTA

In 2001, amidst the Twin Towers coming down, Jay-Z and Nas battling it out over rap supremacy, The Neptunes dominating the charts and clubs with both Busta Rhymes and Britney Spears, A Bathing Ape having its first major collaboration (with Pepsi), Denzel Washington playing the role of a lifetime in Training Day, the international sneaker scene we know now was just starting to form. A big factor in this development was the internet becoming widely available, bringing together likeminded people from all over the world. It was still a few years before Patta opened its doors and Wikipedia had just launched.

Questionable eBay listings, obscure weblogs and straight-from-Japan magazines were still the main way to find out about the more exclusive footwear being released, as up until that point territories were largely separated. Originally a Japan-exclusive iteration of the Dunk Low Pro - pre-cursor to the Nike SB line - is the latest reissue of the Nike Viotech Dunk, releasing on December 10th in mens as well as womens sizes. Patta got key figures of that long gone era as well as the current Amsterdam scene to sit down and talk about their lives at that point, sketching the significance of this time for the development of sneaker and streetwear world.