Drake’s Nocta Line Was Originally for Adidas, Not Nike
Written by SOURCE on January 31, 2022
Drake’s Nocta line with Nike made its debut in 2020 and has been dropping semi-regular collections of tech-heavy apparel and accessories ever since. In a recent interview with retailer Ssense, Jeremy Karl, a designer of the line, revealed that the concept was originally formed while Drake was working on his Adidas deal that never came to fruition.
Canadian retailer Matt George, who’s currently CEO of Yeezy, brought the idea to Karl, explaining he wanted “to make a cooler Stone Island.” Karl then went to Toronto to discuss the idea further.
“I didn’t really even know it was a Drake thing until I saw him and until we started speaking, but that was where Nocta started,” he explains in the Ssense piece. “So we worked on this Adidas deal for a year, which was basically practice for Drake and I to figure out Nocta.”
Karl studied visual arts and design in his hometown of Montreal, which led to working on Virgil Abloh’s Donda team with other notable names like Dime’s Vincent Tsang and Jjjjjound’s Justin Saunders. He later founded techspace, which is described as a virtual archive that focuses on tech and utility-based apparel. It was inspired by the challenging climate he grew up in and even went on to influence Nocta’s golf collection.
“Golf has the best material packages,” Karl says. “They use a lot of GORE[-TEX] membranes, some of the best details like zip-off sleeves or short sleeve windbreakers, interesting details that capture the eye.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Karl explains that the design of the still-unreleased Nike Hot Step collaboration from Drake is inspired by early-2000s Nike Basketball. “Really simple details, perforations or pillow stitching, things that give it a little bit of speed. Drake picked the outsole. It’s actually a hiking outsole,” he says. He doesn’t, however, reveal any details on when it may be finally releasing.
