Phil Lavoie Talks about the Dime x Reebok BB 4000

Songs. Film. Streetwear. You name it and Montreal has a hand in it. The largest town in Canada’s Québec province, Montreal is a veritable hotbed of multicultural innovative talent, something Dime co-founder Phil Lavoie cheekily characteristics to “drinking the h2o from the fountain at Peace Park.” No make a difference if it is in fact the drinking water from the fountain, the crisp air or its worldwide port-adjacent area, Montreal is responsible for innovators like Lavoie and Vincent Tsang’s Dime, Justin Saunders‘ JJJJound and dance songs maven Kaytranada. The hottest output from the city’s creative course? Dime’s new Reebok collaboration, two requires on the basic BB 4000.

A very low-best leather basketball shoe from the late ’80s/early ’90s, the BB 4000 is a a lot more less than-the-radar Reebok design, but Dime was drawn to its flexible small-prime lower and neutral condition. This no-frills construct serves as an apt canvas for the brand’s duo of collaborative will take, 1 of which mixes prosperous brown suede with black accents for a skate-ready seem, the other which combines white and blue leather-based for a basic hoops design. Both, having said that, draw from the Dime archives for 1 of Lavoie and Tsang’s favourite graphics: the botched restoration of Ecce Homo, playfully known as “Monkey Christ.”

Although a badly completed — but heartfelt — rework of a century-previous painting might feel like a peculiar resource of inspiration for a skate model-developed acquire on an aged-university basketball sneaker, it’s in truth flawlessly apt for Dime’s gleefully irreverent ethos. The brand name has lengthy been recognized for its playful solutions, which array from Ecce Homo T-shirts to a toaster that burns grin-inducing graphics onto your bread. The link concerning skateboarding and art is clear for Dime, but basketball is in the blend way too: Lavoie is a former large school basketball player who’s prolonged experienced an appreciation for retro hoops footwear and its record with the video game. This led him to decide on the BB 4000 for Dime’s second collaboration with Reebok just after the two initial partnered for a few can take on the Kamikaze II Small in 2020.

HYPEBEAST lately spoke with Lavoie about Dime’s BB 4000s, how his brand has managed to continue to be playful as a result of the several years and why Montreal has been this sort of a hotbed of inventive expertise. See the whole unique interview beneath, and expect the Dime x Reebok BB 4000 to release through the Dime webstore come February 6 right before a broader global start on February 12.

HYPEBEAST: This BB4000 marks your 2nd basketball-themed collaboration with Reebok. Why have throwback basketball sneakers been a frequent in your collaborative efforts?

Phil Lavoie: The staff in excess of at Reebok dependable us with the notion of acquiring Shawn Kemp go bowling with a basketball for our first marketing campaign, so we made a decision to keep the topic likely with this release.

How was the BB4000 resolved on? Considerably like the Kamikaze II Lower, it’s a much more under-the-radar style — not an evident decision like an Instapump Fury or Club C.

The very first collab was more for sporting activities, and the BB4000 is extra of a shoe to chill in. We believed it would be a excellent stability concerning the two releases. We usually attempt to go with footwear that are not often remaining applied for collaborations.

Do you method performing on retro basketball footwear in a different way than you would a core skate shoe, or is the crossover effortless? I know there is a prolonged history of basketball footwear becoming applied for skateboarding.

Individuals will basically skate something currently. So in that case it was kind of easy since the silhouette is so flexible.

What parallels do you see involving the worlds of basketball and skateboarding? Are the Dime crew basketball lovers way too?

I made use of to perform basketball in high college, and have usually been into the loaded background of footwear that the sport has to give. I also think it’s humorous how in the NBA, for illustration, the new music retains playing when the match is on. Players just sense a lot more fresh when they enjoy to music they get pleasure from. It’s some sort of dance, just like skateboarding. Also the two are much more pleasurable when you have a very good crew to have exciting with.

The “Restoration” graphic/story is a recurring concept in your collections and (sometimes) collaborations. What about it appeals to you exclusively?

Somehow people really like when we set out that graphic with Dime written on it, which can make me genuinely joyful because I feel to myself: they know. It is just one of the coolest paintings in the planet now. In some cases accidents end up being much better than what was originally intended. It took place a lot of times at Dime that we unintentionally arrived up with something which we ended up working with. That Restoration story is the very same factor, on a a lot extra grandiose scale, and that’s why we come across it so relatable. A person day I hope I get to see it in individual. [Dime co-founder] Vincent Tsang and I utilized to always mail each and every other that painting by textual content information lead to we were so into that tale, so we have been seriously joyful when Reebok was open up to the notion of making use of this graphic as imagery on the shoe.

Dime appears to have a knack for injecting a contact of playfulness and persona into its collaborative projects. Why is that essential?

We really like to deliver a snicker or a smile to people’s faces when it comes to advertising and marketing our merchandise. Probably one particular working day we’ll make tremendous severe commercials about skateboards and sneakers, but we have not figured it out still — all those [kinds of commercials] are more challenging to make.

Montreal has been on the increase as a hotbed of creative expertise in the past couple of decades. What about the space breeds and/or encourages creativity?

From Oscar Peterson to Kaytranada, and Alanis Obomsawin to Xavier Dolan, Montreal’s normally been a hotbed of imaginative talent. Perhaps it’s just that Montreal never acquired the recognition it deserved. Port towns are most likely to have a lot more multiculturalism — I assume which is a excellent detail for imaginative talent. Other than that I don’t know if there’s a science to it, but I like to consider it is owing to ingesting the h2o from the fountain at Peace Park.