(Skip to the interview with Mark Ong & Alvin Tan)

Big companies are strange.

Bent on maximising profit, they sparked off the industrial age, mechanizing factories and mass producing shirts, shoes, and everything else you can think of.

Now, in the 21st century, we’ve gone full circle, personalizing products for each user. Nike’s figured out a compromise, mass producing jacket templates but allowing you to customize yours by sticking on decals almost anywhere you want.


Some of the 21 colours available.

Coming in 21 colours with 77 iron-on decals, the 2010 holiday season’s AW77 hoodie is made with a new French-looped composite fleece built to last despite whatever you put it through in your athletic or daily lives (but let’s face it, UrbanWire doubts you’ll be running outside in a hoodie in Singapore’s 30-plus degree oven).


77 patches to choose from.

For those curious about what AW77 means, it means Athletics West, circa 1977.

That was the year Nike’s third employee Geoff Hollister, founder of Athletics West, an elite running club, created a specialized hoodie for his runners who trained day and night through the cold. Fitted with a half-zip to reduce weight and what we now call the scuba-hood, this classic hoodie inspired a whole collection of designs and became the AW77.

Available in all Nike stores from Nov 1, the Nike AW77 retails at $139 and comes with 2 free badges. However, customization will only be available at Nike’s flagship Wisma Atria store, and you can come back any time to get more badges ironed on your jacket, for an additional of $2 for each badge.


Choosing what decals and where to place it.

While you can be pretty creative about your badge placement, you can’t stick designs across the zipper (it impedes function of the hoodie), above the Nike swoosh on the left chest (for branding purposes), and the ribbing by the wrists (the uneven texture will not allow decals to adhere properly).


Using heat to iron the patches on.

Working with Nike, 9 designers in South East Asia from various countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore created 35 of the 77 designs to choose from. For Singapore, Alvin Tan of renowned :phunk studio and SBTG’s Mark Ong, shoe customizer extraordinaire, designed a decal each.


Top: Mark’s checkered design with skull bones. Bottom: Alvin’s winged decal.

The UrbanWire sat down with the 2 famous designers for a chat about their designs, the sports that inspired them, and how they met each other.


From left: Mark Ong and Alvin Tan

Video Interview: