ACG FEATURE - PART TWO

STEWART HORNER INTERVIEW

I knew Nike did cycling shoes for many years but I wasn’t aware of a range you mentioned called Echelon. What was the story there?
I can try but we’ll have to check it up. Around 1989, during the whole Bo Jackson campaign, ACG was brought in as the outdoor cross-training component.
An internal category called Nike Outdoor existed and under that was All Conditions Gear, Echelon (cycling) and Aqua Gear. And I don’t think they lasted too long as individual units before they were just shoved into ACG. It was a while ago so there was quite a lot of mixed messaging going on. You might have an Echelon cycling jersey that’s ACG branded or vice versa, it’s a little cloudy for sure. Finding people like Tinker and asking them is the only way to get your head around it.

Would you agree that ACG has been the most technically innovative division of Nike apparel?
I would agree, yeah.
I mean there’s innovation going on across the whole company so for me to say ACG is more innovative than other groups is not fair, but as far as technical garment construction, then yeah, I think that it is a fair call. We have done the most technically innovative product for the company. We were first to do a No Sew jacket in down. Laser cutting and welding is commonplace now, but we were in there from the beginning and we’ve got the garments to prove it. We’ve always been about pushing those envelopes but trying to master them as well. It’s all very well going to a factory and getting them to create a jacket that’s fully welded but the stringent testing that we have to go through is far above industry standard. 

PART ONE OF THE ACG FEATURE CAN BE READ HERE...