Recap: Nike SB P-ROD 8 launch (New York)

Last week I headed over to New York to attend the launch party of the Nike SB P-ROD 8, amongst other things.

For some reason, a part of me expected this event to be really different from the sorts of product launches you get in London, but it was surprisingly familiar while being completely alien. I felt at home; the usual set up of a makeshift bar at the back of a cool store, full of cool people, except this time everyone knew each other and I wasn’t included in that “everyone” category. It was nice to see Nike doing an event a little lo-fi, even if they had gone all out on the decor. It was really nice to see an array of classic P Rod shoes on display as well. One major difference when attending an event like this is New York is the talent. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got some serious skate talent in the UK and more specifically London, but it’s not quite the same as spotting Eric Koston stood next to you half way through the night.

I’m very interested to see how this shoe goes down in both the skate and sneaker communities as I’m convinced it will be looked back on as a landmark for Nike in skateboarding. Hold tight for an interview with the man himself, Paul Rodriguez, coming to the site soon.

Photography: Alex Synamatix for The Daily Street

About the Author

Alex Synamatix

One of three co-founders at THE DAILY STREET, Alex is our Editor-in-Chief, overseeing all TDS activity. Outside of TDS, Alex is a respected creative in his own right, from art directing club nights (comm•une) to consulting for some of the largest global brands.

Comments

PriamofWilusa

Paul Rodriguez is a great skateboarder and his store and clothing brands are dope but this P Rod 8 sucks big time as almost all the other 7 models have! My local skate store were told when they were at their SB appointment that they HAD TO order at least one of the P Rod 8’s which blows.
Jordan Tunnicliff

Why does it blow? Personally I don’t like the look of the shoe, by that’s just my own taste. The amount of tech in the Prod-8 is mind blowing and it’s not the first time he has tried to push the boundaries of tech shoes. The Nike SB Future Primitive from a few years back was another tech shoe he put out there as an experiment. And it makes good business sense to make skate shops take the new shoe. Don’t delude yourself that other skate companies don’t do the same. The only “downfall” of this shoe is that the hypebeasts and resellers wont touch it. But on second thoughts that’s not really a negative at all.
http://www.thedailystreet.co.uk Alex Synamatix

I can’t comment on the ordering side of things, but that is a hugely sweeping statement about all the P Rods. I skate a pair of P Rod 6s and they’re wicked. Great looking shoe as well. Personally, I think the P ROD 8 is an incredible move forward for the SB brand and skate footwear, but I can imagine it’s not to everyone’s taste. The blue colourway probably doesn’t help that.
PriamofWilusa

Just one mans humble opinion Alex but back in the early nineties I was running one of the then top skate stores in the UK and loving Cubic as we did we bought into the whole Savier program (then owned by Nike) in a big way liking the idea of a skate shoe that would have given NASA a run for it’s money as far as tech spec was concerned and even though the team was second to none (BA & Mr Stabba) the shoes were not conventionally attractive to the consumer and the hefty price tag meant they bombed big time and we struggled to even make our money back on them in the sale. Then shortly after Nike launched SB and again loving Seb Palmer the man who single-handedly made Nike SB what it would become in the UK by carefully seeding it into the correct accounts we were happy to give SB a try (good decision) now as anyone around at the time would know that the core skaters did not welcome Nike with open arms and it was the sneaker heads who propelled our sales through the roof but even back then there was pressure from Nike to stock some of the more technical shoes they had in the line like the E Cue & URL but again due to price and the fact that neither attracted the skaters or the sneaker heads they bombed and went in the sale so as I said at the beginning of this waffle although only an opinion the facts are there that these technical shoes that Nike & P Rod continue to push out (hence this being his 8th model now!) never really work for the retailers to sell or skaters who have to actually pay full price for their shoes.