Jay Gordon’s Pendleton x Nike Mowabb is Future Americana
by Matteo Scaglione - 05 November, 2017

The Nike Air Mowabb, released in 1991, was conceived by Tinker Hatfield as the supreme cross-trainer for the adventurer (bike, hike, boulder? No problem for it). The shoe represented a new kind of thinking for outdoor equipment, furthered by its unique “leave no trace” outsole pattern designed to minimize the wearer’s footprint and reduce degradation to the environment. Moab, Utah, — the ultimate in outdoor adventure destinations — was the pivotal muse, while on the flipside — and unintentionally — the design (which advanced ideas earlier realized in Hatfield’s Huarache runner) made an impact on a wholly different surface: urban concrete.

With that, the Air Mowabb represents transcendence for Nike’s ACG line. Initiated in ’89, all-conditions gear usually meant designing for the outdoors with a strictly athletic perspective. Light, fast and innovative, the footwear offerings stoked those enamored with both trail running and riding single-track, and slowly made way into the consciousness of folks looking for alternatives to typically heavy winter boots. When the Mowabb hit, the trickle turned into a torrent.

Jay Gordon, co-founder of Boston boutique Bodega, was among the many who “hated wearing big, bulky boots,” and found ACG as “my way out.”

“I started collecting sneakers in high school and would take the bus to New York to get shoes that I couldn't get in Boston. That's where I first saw ACG. I loved it instantly. ACG colorways and the whole vibe of it was my style,” remembers Gordon. “The first time I saw someone wearing the Mowabb I thought ‘those are awesome.’ It was one of the first ACG shoes that I got. I was with a friend at a store on 17th street.  He was like, ‘Why are you getting that? It's crazy?’”

The shoe was also the beginning of Gordon’s antiquarian approach to collecting ACG. He studied all its nuances: from the Mowabb’s speckled midsole (a Nike first, inspired by trout skin, that has since become an industry standard form of embellishment) to the cut of jackets. He also charted ACG’s evolving color palate, following along through the ’90s and cataloging the various color packs that dropped in the early ’00s.