John Geiger Says It's Only a Matter of Time Until He Works with Nike

On episode 48 of The HBR Show, we caught up with footwear designer and sneaker customizer John Geiger. You probably know Geiger for his “Misplaced Checks” take on the Nike Air Force One with extra Swooshes in myriad colors, textures and fabrics grafted onto them. In this conversastion, Geiger explains that he had been consulting for Nike, contributing ideas to the Air Revis silhouette, among others, before putting out the “Misplaced Checks” on his own. His initial run of 35 pairs was scooped up and interest was fever-pitch. “During the process of the customization, my business partner [and NBA agent] Sean Davis came to me and asked, ‘Instead of changing Nikes up, have you ever thought of just making your shoe?’” Geiger had ideas, but he never thought of sourcing and putting an original silhouette together, from sole to upper. He started work on the sole halfway through the initial Misplaced Checks run; two years after that, the John Geiger 001 launched. In between, were the trials and tribulations of prototyping and a lot of lost money. Nowadays, Geiger has been focusing most of his creative energy on his eponymous sneaker line and his ever-expanding roster of original silhouettes — the 002s are just a couple months away, according to the designer. Geiger’s aesthetic keeps one foot steeped in luxury materials and the other firmly planted on the street, with a sneaker-head’s sense for silhouette and shape. “That’s why the 001 has an air bladder in it,” says Geiger. “I wanna c