Before being discovered by Emily Adams Buddy Oggla of the Nike archives, not many people knew about the Astro Grabber, a simple shoe that the Swoosh put on soccer players in the company's early days. But Jeff Johnson remembers it fondly. Johnson, Nike's first full-time employee, remembers the Astro Grabber hitting his desk in early 1972. "That was a very exciting shoe," he says.
Now, the Nike Astro Grabber is getting a second role as the most anticipated sneaker of the moment, as part of the long-awaited collaboration between Bode and Nike. The collection, which will be available in stores starting April 18, features two redesigned versions of shoes that Vogue declares are “the next must-have sneakers.” The shoes will launch alongside a small collection of team apparel under Bode Rec. , a new line inspired by the history of American sportswear.
As Bode's first major collaboration, the launch marks an important moment in establishing the next-generation luxury brand. In typical Budd fashion, the project involves a great deal of storytelling. That's where Johnson comes in - one of the most fascinating figures in American footwear history, the man who literally coined the name "Nike."
And while the hype around the sneakers was reaching a boiling point, I got a video call for a rare interview with Johnson from his home in New Hampshire, where he has lived since his retirement in 1983. (He probably missed out on starring in Ben Affleck's movie.) “Air,” in other words, by about a year.) I quickly realized why Bode Aujla asked Nike if she could meet him when she started designing the collaboration. Johnson's running days are over, but he's as sharp as a track runner, and doesn't need much encouragement to recite long yarns about Nike's fictional origins, where he's still fondly referred to as "Employee Number One."
“Making running shoes for your friends and yourself and selling them at a good value and at a good price, that's not a real job. That's just fun, fun, fun, fun, fun!” he recalls. Johnson, a former Stanford University runner, was Phil Knight's first full-time employee at The year was 1965. If Knight was the brains of the operation that became Nike, Johnson was the heart of it, bringing a level of obsession to the idea of marketing and selling athletic shoes that carried clothing. The fledgling company went through countless rough patches. "I was... "The only guy" at first. "So I was sweeping floors, going to the docks to get shoes, marketing, everything on my own." And he was sometimes prescient. In 1971, Knight was desperate for a title before the first batch of shoes left. Factory Original Nike came to Johnson in a dream at the eleventh hour, and the rest was history.
All the while, Johnson played the role of the group's unofficial muse. When Bud Uggla visited him in New Hampshire, he regaled her with tales of the first Nike shoe to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated — the Astro Grabber, on the feet of USC star Anthony Davis. Also at that time, Buddy Uggla's father was a high school football captain. Family is at the heart of the Bode brand ethos, and Bode Aujla has woven its personal history throughout the collection. The campaign includes a photo from 1971 of people wearing full mesh gear, and the sneakers come with a removable brass football charm similar to the one Bode Aujla wore on a bracelet for years.
Those who know the designer know that it's somewhat ironic that she designed a sneaker at all. “I don't actually wear sneakers!” She said. But in The Grabber, she found quite an obscure historical footnote of the kind she was sorely compelled to. The sneaker embodied Nike's early successes and failures. “It could have been a dangerous shoe,” Johnson said. The shoe had one of Bormann's early soles, which was thin and flexible, which increased mobility but left athletes vulnerable to stubbed toes. “But you can get a dime out of the Astro Grabber game, so players sure liked it,” he said. To transform it into a silhouette that fashion heroes like Kaia Gerber would go crazy for, Bode Aujla modified the shape and sole so it looks effortless and timeless. “As I always say about Bode, I wanted to create something that you could take a photo of without really knowing where it came from,” she said.
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