GET FAMILIAR: Dashawn Jordan

Home is where the heart is.

For pro skater Dashawn Jordan, that’s a motto he carries through everything in life. A reminder of his days growing up in Arizona, where his path through the typical youth sports obsessions ended with a skateboard. He fell in love with skating, and in turn, it fell in love with him right back. Jordan’s talent on the board is undeniable, and he’s been riding for Nike SB since the boxes first started showing up at his Arizona home when he was a teenager in the early 2010s.

Skateboarding has brought Dashawn to Southern California now, where the industry resides, but his heart is still in AZ. So, when it came time to design his own Nike SB Dunk Low, Dashawn knew exactly what he wanted the pair to look like and exactly what it had to represent, draping the colorway in snakeskin, black suede, and purple accents like his favorite Arizona Diamondbacks hat.

With the Dashawn Jordan x Nike SB Dunk Low Home is Where the Heart Is hitting skate shops soon, we caught up with Jordan to learn more about the upcoming colorway, his history with Nike SB, and his lifelong love for sneakers.

The Early Days

Growing up in Tucson and eventually moving to Chandler, Arizona, outside of Phoenix, Jordan found his love for sneakers before he ever picked up a skateboard.

“I used to steal my older sister’s shoes, bro,” Jordan told me with a laugh. “She had the best shoes, man. Air Forces, Dunks, everything. But I couldn’t fit them, so I would stuff socks in the front and then wear them outside with my older cousins like they were mine.”

When he started skating, like all of us, the draw of skate industry brands, clothing, and particularly shoes pulled him in immediately. His first pair of skate shoes wasn’t from a skate shop, though; it was from Macy’s.

“Mom got me a pair of Zoo Yorks,” Jordan said. “They were all black low-tops with a Velcro strap. I thought I was so cool in those motherfuckers, I was just happy to start looking and feeling like a skater.”

More than looking and feeling like a skater, Dashawn was progressing at an insane rate, and older skaters at the local Arizona parks took notice quickly. After a few pairs of hand-me-downs, including his first pair of SBs, a black pair of SB Blazers from his friend Tyler, the local industry heads took over, with Nike SB’s Oliver Flores eventually sending him a box. His first pair flowed directly from the source? A blue colorway of the Nike SB Koston 1.

SB Dunks: For Fits and For Tricks

When Nike SB boxes start showing up at your door as a teenager, it makes sense that you would start collecting Dunks. For Dashawn, friends & family pairs are always nice to hold on to, but even better to skate. He’s stashed away pairs of his former roommate and close friend Yuto Horigome’s SB Dunk colorways, but skate footage lasts longer than sneakers, and you can see Jordan put rare pairs to griptape in every part, like the pink friends & family colorway of his board sponsor, April Skateboards’ Nike SB Dunk Low, or the SB Dunk Stingwater collab.

When it comes to his favorite pairs, though, Dashawn is all about colorways with soft suede and leather that feel good on the board. In no particular order, his five favorite all-time SB Dunks are the Phillies Dunks, Fogs, Chicagos, Classic Greens, and the Orange Label white leather pair with a black Swoosh.

Dashawn’s Dunks

When it came time to design his own Dunk colorway, Dashawn knew exactly what it had to be.

“I’ve had that colorway on a PDF file for the past five years, and we only started working on the Dunk colorway two years ago,” Jordan said. “I just always knew that if I had the opportunity, this is the colorway I would put on my own Dunk. I’ve been wearing the Arizona Diamondbacks 2001 World Series hat for as long as I can remember, and everywhere I go, New York, Chicago, everywhere, I see people wearing that hat. It just represents home to me.”

Starting with a white and black snakeskin print on the toe, lace, and heel panels to represent the hat and Arizona’s scary ass desert wildlife, black suede covers the toebox and side panels, with more black on the side panel Swooshes, midsole, and outsole. Keeping the theme consistent with the Diamondbacks throwbacks from the Luis Gonzalez and (noted SB Dunk collector) Randy Johnson-led 2001 World Series team, the sockliner is a deep purple, with teal added to the tongue label logos and heel tab to round it out.

“I based my material inspiration on the Fog Dunks, because in my opinion, that’s one of the best skating Dunks,” Jordan said. “So I asked them to use all the softest materials we could find, from the snakeskin to the suede, to have a shoe that not only looked good, but that skated well, too. I really want to be skating my shoe all the time.”

On early sample pairs, Jordan says the SB team played around with adding orange to the sockliner instead of the final purple, but after a few wear tests, Dashawn was happy with his original plan and put the purple back for the final production pair. Similarly, the original plan was to put an off-white eggshell color on the sole, but after a couple of sample pairs, the team at SB thought an all-black midsole and outsole would set the colorway apart, and Dashawn agreed.

The result is an instantly recognizable representation of Arizona culture and Jordan’s path to living out his dreams. No matter how far he gets, home is where the heart is; the shoes are just a nice reminder.

Watch Dashawn Skate

It wouldn’t be a new edition of Get Familiar without some skate footage.

Along with the release of the shoe, Jordan is dropping a brand new video part full of footage highlighting Arizona spots and, in his words, “showing a different side of my skating that I’ve never shown before.”

“That’s my baby,” Dashawn says about the importance of releasing new footage alongside the shoe. “I’ve just been getting footage in the cut with some amazing filmers and friends and, yeah, it means a lot to me. This is the reason I get to do everything I’m able to do…because of that board and those four wheels.”

While we wait for Dashawn’s Home is Where the Heart Is SB Dunk colorway and his new video part, there’s plenty of time to sit back, relax, and watch him destroy your grail Dunks in his past video parts.

Zach Harris

Zach Harris is a writer based in Philadelphia. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Vice, Complex, High Times, and more. He is obsessed with skateboarding and bowling. He is still looking for his first 300. For tips, reviews, and anything in size 10.5 - zach.h@soleretriever.com