The Current - Nike fashion

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Nike’s latest collection is making waves — not just for the fashion, but for who’s behind it. The brand has teamed up with the Toronto-born label NorBlack NorWhite in what’s being celebrated as a landmark collaboration. For many in the South Asian community, it’s a rare moment of representation in an industry that often borrows from their culture without credit.

Hi, I'm Gavin Crawford, the host of Because News, Canada's funniest news quiz. Every week we make jokes out of the headlines with help from a panel of brilliant comedians like Alice Moran. Hi there, I'm a sweet little Alberta dirtbag with very gentle takes. They call me light, sweet, and crude. Half your job is making jokes, but the other half is scoring points. What subjects do you net the most points in? Sports, but also space, because I went to space camp so much as a kid, not to brag.

That's the exact amount of knowledge you need for this show. Stay vaguely informed while in good company. With me. Listen to Because News, available wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. 15 years ago, a pair of Toronto women packed up their lives and moved to India in the hopes of exploring their culture and learning traditional crafts. Since then, they've been making a name for themselves in the fashion world

from features in Vogue magazine and Architectural Digest to designing and styling some of the world's top athletes. And now they have added another notch to their belts. Nike has launched its first ever collaboration with an Indian fashion label. Riga Campadia is one of the founders of that label. It's called Nor Black Nor White. She is back in Toronto. Riga, good morning. Good morning, Matt.

You and I spoke a long time ago when you were thinking about all of this kind of stuff perhaps happening in the future. Just remind us, what did you want to achieve when you moved from Toronto to India? What did you want to achieve when you moved from Toronto to India? What did you want to achieve? Honestly, it wasn't too much of an intention other than getting out of the comfortable, safe community zone that I created for myself in Toronto. So it was more of just going to India and having a lived experience as an adult. Going back, I was born in India, but going back visiting as a child was always within the comforts and safety of my family and getting to spend the summers

with my grandparents and all my cousins. So in my early 20s, I went back just as an adult to explore a life there in Bombay specifically as an adult and just free and being able to choose a life there in Bombay specifically as an adult and just free and being able to choose a life that I actually didn't know what it was going to be specifically, but it quickly turned into what we now call Ner-Black, Ner-White. And so you do that, you launch this label, and now you have a collaboration with one of the largest companies in the world.

How did this happen that you end up working with Nike? You know what? It's kind of wild because that's never really been, we've never been people to have a goal list and a mood board or specific visions and mission statements. I think both Amrit and I work kind of from our heart and we just kind of work from that space of needing to instead of wanting to. So everything unraveled as it is, both of us actually don't even come from a formal fashion training background at all. I, as in Toronto, was working more so in the art space with manifesto community projects, like

more in the cultural space. Amrit was working at 69 Vintage, a classic like old school vintage store on Queen Street. And we met just by being friends on that. So we went in just learning and exploring Indian crafts and we were super excited and inspired by this one specific Bandhani family. They work within the form of Tidai and in Kachgadrat. By meeting them one day, we were just deeply inspired by their work and how they were thinking about the Tidai form that is super ancient and how they were working with it in 2012.

So yeah, it came from that. And I guess people saw the dedication and work and many years later we got looked at by Nike. You're making sportswear now. I mean, describe what this, you mentioned bandini, which is this tie-dying technique, 5,000 years old. Describe, I'm looking at some of the images of people wrestling and some cricket players as well.

Describe what the collection looks like. Yeah. So, you know, this is a very different space for us to apply a tie-dye form in an athletic landscape. So, we wanted to make it more accessible and kind of mute down our colors a bit because we have usually super vibrant colors and patterns in combination. So this was to be kind of an entry point into the sportswear space and make people feel

comfortable in that athletic arena. And it was amazing to have pro athletes, these amazing women from India in the campaign itself mixed along with some of our friends and some models. So, you know, women in sport right now is becoming more of a conversation and even though women have been playing sports for so long, it's being taken seriously, being invested in and it's a beautiful thing to see. So for us to be a part of that conversation at this early stage is pretty incredible. You've said this collection invites women in, celebrates them and reminds them to take up space, play hard and look damn good doing it.

What does that mean to you? Honestly, it comes from us. Like we're both, Amrit and I are obviously both women leading in a space that has been really difficult to maneuver and navigate. We've learned everything on the ground, on the field and just being leaders in our own work, we know how difficult it is to operate, just even in the world as women. So when we were looking at this collection,

we had told Nike that we feel like navigating life as a woman feels like a sport. So navigating life in India as a woman is definitely a sport sport and you have to have a certain sort of athletic mindset. And I think that parallels whether you're a professional athlete or just like operating in this life, you know, life is hard. And so to kind of tackle all the obstacles, you kind of have to have that resilient athletic mindset and discipline.

So yeah. How do you make sure that a big company like Nike gets it right? I mean, one of the things that a big company like Nike gets it right? I mean, one of the things that a company like that could do is roll into India and say, we're going to incorporate Indian design in what we're doing. And you could imagine the whispers turning into shouts about, you know, people used to call cultural appropriation.

Do you know what I mean? That they would get it wrong. They would steal things. They would not understand what it is that they are, what they're using. How do you make sure in this cloud and in this collaboration that they get get it wrong, they would steal things, they would not understand what it is that they are, what they're using. How do you make sure in this collaboration that they get it right? I think it was just a lot of communication. Matt, this collaboration has been in the works

for two years. So there's been multiple meetings and we got to chat with the Global Women's team. All of them were super lovely in the process of actual design and creation of this were super lovely in the process of actual design and creation of this. There were a lot of questions and they always kind of pointed, and they wanted to hear from us first. So it has been collaborative on the design process in that sense, and they wanted to make sure everything was aligned with how we would work on it if we

were building this even just by ourselves. And I think that's a real reason why they even came to us because they, I think, felt and saw the integrity in which we work in and how we create. So there was a lot of communication and thankfully, it also allowed us to feel more free in how we were making this happen. And they were actually great partners to work with from the design standpoint. Um, and they were mindful that, you know, we make sure that this all feels good for everybody around us. What are the things that you operate under is this

idea of, and it says this on your website, respect the past, question the present and create for the future. How do you see this line kind of embodying those values? I think this line kind of underlines that statement, to be honest, because we never saw this coming. So for us to be able to have started nor black nor white, you know, highlighting such an old craft process of Bandhani,

the tie-dye process, and then working on it for 15 years in our own way, and in, for some people's heads, we were working on it in a much more contemporary way. And then now for it to go reach into such a mass world of sport, I think we're kind of touching on the past, present and the future here. Could you have done that? I'll let you go, but could you have done that without growing up in Canada, in Toronto, where you have a bunch of cultures? I mean, it becomes a cliche, but that's because it's true. A lot of cultures smash together and create something new. I'd like to say we're responsible

for a lot of people in India. Within our community, learning Toronto slang, we represent Toronto everywhere we go. We're super proud of being from the city and having the city raise us amongst so many immigrants. Honestly, when you leave a city like this, you realize how special it is to be surrounded by so many cultures and really kind of interwown in everyday life. And so it's a big part of who we are and what we represent wherever we go.

And I'm telling you, when you come to Bombay and you hear all these kids with Toronto slang coming out of their mouth, I like to say we have a little bit of a part to play in that. It's not a bad thing to be responsible for. Congratulations. I mean, I don't know what you. Thank you. You work with Nike, what happens next? That's a big thing to follow up on. Yeah, hopefully there's much more to come, but thank you so much for taking the time, Matt. It's good to talk to you again. Mariga Capodadia is the co-founder of Nor Black Nor White. It's an Indian fashion label with, as you heard, Roots in Canada just launched the first Indian

collaboration with Nike. This has been The Current Podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 AM at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca slash the current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening.

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