The Nike SB Dunk High "Skunk" from 2010. Image via Flight Club

“The fact that they’ve been able to market these shoes with direct relation to weed suggests just how off the radar the SB program is compared to the rest of the company,” former pro skater and current owner of Standard Issue clothing Jimmy Gorecki says. “Could you ever imagine there being a 4/20 Nike Basketball shoe? Or a Purple Skunk football cleat?”

While Nike SB—and the Dunk in particular—crested another wave of outlandish hype and inflated resale value in 2020, SB has also spent the past few years expanding its conceptual reach. Now, more than just skate industry inside jokes and unsanctioned shoutouts to beer brands, animated TV dads, and international soccer teams, SB has added corporate collaborations with major companies like Ben & Jerry’s, the NBA, and 7-11 (well, almost). The latest era of overnight lineups and instant sellouts has come with a new dose of mainstream approval and admiration. But in a world where limited edition sneakers are seen by many as nothing more than a financial asset, the brand that built its reputation on colorways worthy of cease-and-desist letters still uses the annual stoner holiday to pay homage to skateboarding’s lifelong love affair with weed and to retain a continuous throughline of clever counter-culture creativity.

So how did Nike SB come to embrace stoner culture so hardily? It is largely thanks to two former Nike SB employees, the artist Todd Bratrud, and a brand culture steeped in the same carefree DIY mentality as its namesake sport.

Ahead of 4/20 in 2010, Bratrud, who had already designed successful Dunks like the Send Help, approached former Nike SB senior product line manager Shawn Baravetto with the idea of the Skunk Dunk High. Baravetto loved the idea and reached out to then fellow senior product line manager Stephen Pelletier, the self-described “stoner on staff and material nerd,” on the SB team at the time. Bratrud and Pelletier combined forces to turn the Dunk High into a nug of dank weed drenched in blended shades of fuzzy green suede with a purple check and a dazed and confused skunk drawing on the insole. The Skunk Dunk was an obvious nod to the sweet leaf in an era before the legalization green rush took hold.

“[The Skunk Dunk] was the first 4/20 drop that we had to be careful with legal,” Baravetto says now. “I had to send it off to legal and the response I got was something like, ‘So the skunk… could you make him less… sick looking?’”