Nike ACG Is Returning to Its Cutting-Edge Form
In February, Nike staged the return of its 40-year-old outdoor imprint, All Conditions Gear (ACG), aboard a bright orange train bound for the Winter Olympics.
Nike has always been brilliant at spectacle, but the headlines that followed were just as much about the products themselves, like the US Olympic team’s inflatable jackets and custom $1,000 compression boots. The whole activation was less a flashy relaunch and more a statement of intent: Nike isn’t just revisiting ACG, it’s redefining what it stands for in the outdoors.
ACG’s origins go back to 1978, when two climbers scaled K2 in Nike Long Distance Vectors. Seeing them ditch their clunky hiking boots for a lightweight, more agile runner to tackle the world’s second-highest mountain planted a seed in the Swoosh’s mind. By the late ‘80s, one-off outdoor projects had evolved into a legitimate design philosophy, and All Conditions Gear was born.
Since then, ACG has morphed into different forms. Depending on when you grew up, ACG will likely mean something different to you. A hiking brand to some, a streetwear label to others, or, for a brief period in the late 2010s, an experimental predecessor of Gorp as NikeLab ACG under the guidance of ACRONYM’s Errolson Hugh. (More on that here.)
The new era of ACG draws on decades of expertise, giving it a foundation few can match. But the real challenge it faces is making headway in a busy, arguably saturated, field. As participation in outdoor activities soared post-pandemic, so too has the number of brands and gear. Legacy outdoor brands have doubled down, securing their positions in the markets. Meanwhile, fashion-forward brands like ROA and And Wander have picked up pace, serving a new fanbase looking for something different in how they dress for outdoor activities.
Does it bother ACG? “We have an athlete mindset here, so we love competition. It's fun to compete,” shares Bret Schoolmeester, VP ACG Footwear, when I speak to him at the ACG summit at the Nike campus in Portland. “The answer is always: be better[...] That helps create a point of distinction and improvement versus anyone else in the outdoor space who isn't in nearly as many facets of serving athletes.”
How do they plan to be better? According to Margaret Mussman, Senior Director, ACG apparel and accessories design, “The difference is the power of Nike. The difference is the power of a science brand. Being able to shine a light on the outdoor athlete, so we can power up even more – jump higher, run faster, and be outside longer. It's been a while since AGC got to shine that light.”
Nike’s HQ in Portland is home to the LeBron Innovation Center, the core of its science-driven approach to sport. Inside the towering building is 84,000 square feet of remarkable tech. The highlight is a Cathedral-esque sports hall with the world's largest motion-capture installation, running tracks with underlying force-measurement plates, and environmental chambers that mimic global atmospheric conditions. There’s also a host of various sports machinery with wires and screens hooked up. Walking through it reminds you of the knowledge and access the Swoosh has, and the power that comes with it.
We continue to discuss the evolution of the outdoors in recent years: “[The outdoors] is no longer a crunchy, slow-paced thing. It's high aerobic, high performance,” explains Mussman. “It's serendipitous that ACG gave us the opportunity to fully be Nike and be itself proudly, when maybe it didn't have that opportunity before or that confidence.”
Despite veering into lifestyle territory over the years, the “new” ACG is focused fully on performance. Ultra running, in particular. Their roster of athletes, aka The ACG Racing Dept. counts 30 of the best trail runners, including Caleb Olson and Yao Miao. They’re also sponsoring serious trail events such as Chongli 168 Ultra Trail and the Oregon-based Gorge Waterfalls trail race, for which they built a dedicated campsite experience to bring in media partners to watch the race.
“The extremity of these ultra races, with that level of extreme climate conditions, challenging terrain, and such long distances, feels like a perfect example of athletes pushing both themselves and their gear so far. It created a really high bar for us,” shares Schoolmeester. “The other thing is we are also a great running brand with a strong history of solving runner problems. So it felt like a natural adjacency, yet a new extreme for us to push into.”
In its former years, under designers like Tinker Hatfield and Peter Fogg, ACG did exactly that. It gave Nike designers the space to experiment with wild designs. The Air Mowabb and Deschutz Sandal, both released in the early ‘90s, were unlike anything out there at the time. In this new era, ACG’s track record of innovating continues with pieces like the Radical AirFlow running shirt, the Vista Vert shades, and the Gaiadome.
Beyond products, the new ACG is also bringing back its beloved tongue-in-cheek tone. Back in the day, ACG sought to differentiate itself from other brands in the industry and even from other lines within Nike through its messaging. Tanner Gimbel, owner of Portland retailer The Culture PDX, told Highsnobiety that ACG’s ad work helped build the sub-brand’s cult following. “The creativity, edgy slogans, and somewhat rebellious attitude of it all is really what we connected with.”
Take this early ACG ad presenting the "Top Ten Reasons to Start Outdoor Cross-Training." The reasons offered include “Less likely to bump into people you owe MONEY to,” and “No BAUHAUS architecture in nature.” It was risky, memorable, and full of personality.
For its relaunch, the team has brought back that rebellious voice, Mussmann says. “This is a unique moment that you're kind of resurrecting a spirit that already has sort of a flavor, personality, a personification.”
The best example is the launch campaign, produced with Jeff Tremaine, the co-creator of Jackass. The first film opens with an Attenborough-style narrator speaking over a grainy image of Earth slowly rotating. “If you’re looking at the world from the horizontal comforts of your couch, bag of chips in one hand, doomscroll machine in the other, of course, the Earth is just dirt and sticks and moss and bugs and stuff,” the narrator says.
This was followed by the ACG Racing Dept. clip, which undeniably references Jackass: The Movie’s opening sequence, only this time it's runners. It’s grainy, dirty, and chaotic–a true reflection of what it’s actually like to run 100 kilometers through rain, mud, and pain.
This subversive spirit is deeply entrenched within ACG, Schoolmeester explains, right down to the athletes it's working with. “When you meet these people (the Racing Dept.), they're not typical, like, straight up the fairway, straight-laced athletes. That vibe should also show up in the product, because it should reflect them and who they are. Oftentimes, that is very fun and truly irreverent.”
In just a matter of months, ACG has excelled at worldbuilding. Ultimately, though, the true question of ACG’s success will lie with its product. The imprint has kicked Nike’s gear up a notch, but only time will tell. “The way I've sort of communicated with my team is: If you think of time as a train moving down a track, our job is to jump it, break the timeline. Sometimes that's material. Sometimes that's digging something out of the dirt. It's distinguishable. It's clear. That's the high, if you will, we're chasing constantly.”
This shift feels not just like reinvention, but as a confident return to the brand’s former cutting-edge form. “It feels like it (ACG) can take risks," confirms Mussmann. "This feels like the old Nike, but actually, this is new Nike. This is just how we get to be proudly ourselves again. I still fully believe in Nike. I wanted to be an athlete because of Nike. Nike taught me that confidence, and now I want to give that to other people as it relates to the outdoors, especially.”
