19nine's KU collection drops today at 11AM EST
Today at 11 AM EST, retro sportswear company 19nine’s Kansas collection drops. I talked to co-founder Josh Barnett in December on the day the company’s secured KU’s licensing, something the athletic department has always been stingy with. Evidenced by the three pairs dropping this morning—pairs representing the ‘80s, ‘90s and 2000s—19nine smoked the collab.
I caught up with Josh earlier this week to talk briefly on why he picked these pairs, which will almost certainly sell out, and dove into some more KU lore, including where the hell he found that “dunking Jayhawk” logo. These three pairs will be online at 11, with an ‘88-themed drop coming in March.
So why these three pairs?
So the ‘03 pair was just a personal favorite of mine. I love those shorts. I've always loved those shorts. They’re a distinct design. They don't just cover ‘03, they cover multiple years of Kansas too—I want to say like ‘98, ‘99, somewhere in that range probably is where they started.
You get Collison and Hinrich and the back-to-back Final Fours in ‘02 and ‘03 those just kind of stood out and we wanted to do those for sure.
The ‘91 ones as we researched out, because I wanted another Final Four year. That was a little bit off the beaten path. And then as I did the research on that team, that team was really inspirational and super dope. They were unranked coming into the season and then just kind of fought their way and clawed their way through and beat some blue bloods to get through. They beat IU and North Carolina, and nobody gave him a chance to beat Carolina. And that was Dean Smith vs Roy Williams. The “KU” on those shorts is really unique too. And so we want to feature that and we thought it looked really good in the white.
I gotta know more about how you found the logo on the practice shorts!
Obviously Danny and the Miracles is one of basketball’s greatest stories. So we had to do that. (Ed. note: Another ‘88 pair is a part of that March drop) The practice shorts actually came from that ‘88 team too. We found a picture of it somehow. And then we found the actual pair on an auction site. So we were able to pull the logo.
So we thought this collection was a good mix of blues and whites and a good mix of eras. Kansas fans can pick and choose.
If you do another collection or drop, which direction would you go in the future? Is there any Jayhawk lore you turned up that you were surprised by?
What we'll do is we'll eventually sell out of these a couple of times, we’ll restock two or three times, and then we'll flip the colors on them too. So the ‘90 ones will come back in blue, the ‘03s will come back in white, et cetera, et cetera. But I don't have any hints of where we're going past this initial launch, although there will be obviously more Kansas shorts in the pipeline.
The coolest thing that I discovered in my research, which I already hit on, was that ‘91 team. I remember them making it to the Final Four. And then obviously I remember them playing Duke and the Grant Hill oop and all that stuff. I was 10 years old when that was happening. But I had just assumed that Kansas was awesome that year and was supposed to be there. And as I kind of got in there I got some Mark Randall quotes that I pulled from from an interview that he did, and it really was like a true underdog story. And, you know, like I never see Kansas as an underdog. I never see Duke as an underdog. You just never see that.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.