In conversation, Sachs discusses how the poncho went from speculative exercise to NIKECRAFT project.

Nike News: NIKECRAFT is a 50-50 enterprise between Nike and Tom Sachs. How does that work when it comes to this product?

Tom Sachs: I want to start by reminding all of us that NIKECRAFT isn't just a brand, it's a philosophy and an approach to how we do stuff based on transparency and evidence of construction.

Jarrett showed me the idea and expressed the problems with it — he said that it was too complicated. And I said, ‘No problem. We'll just make a movie about it.’ In doing that, we discovered it was as complicated as Jarrett suggested, so we began to work on different solutions.

Through a lot of exploration and testing, the studio was able to find opportunity to push on an idea that had been stuck. We simplified the deployment mechanism and the repacking mechanism. We integrated things like a drag-racing inspired parachute release mechanism, an extension flap to the poncho and the fanny pack.

NN: When someone shows you something like Jarrett had with the breakaway zippers and this vague construct, where does your mind go? How did you get to drag racing?

TS: When I saw his first prototype, I viewed it as a magic trick. Later, when I stumbled across the parachute release mechanism of a dragster and saw how it folded back, I saw how the problems that we were having with the complexity of the release mechanism were solved in other parts of industry. This particular mechanism, which allows a transition from fast to slow, served the purpose we needed.

These transitions are reflected in the season of springtime, and March is the puberty of the seasons. And it's a very difficult month, statistically it’s when most people lose their cell phones and their keys and their wallet because they're switching coats. Also, as you get caught in the rain during this time but rarely have a raincoat with you, I thought, why not combine all these problems? One thing that we’ve learned in the studio is that if you have a bunch of problems, sometimes adding more problems to the pile can start to solve the problems.