New Mitchell & Ness Creative Director Don C on the Power of the Throwback, Working With the Bulls, and Learning from Virgil Abloh

Of course Don C shows up to our chat wearing a Bulls jersey. The 46-year-old Chicago native and designer behind the Just Don brand is the newly appointed creative director of premium goods for Mitchell & Ness, the longtime purveyor of throwback gear—but he’s also got a long history of tapping into the power of nostalgia and turning basic sportswear into dope streetwear. In the ’90s, that meant selling M&N throwbacks out of his trunk; in 2011, that meant releasing a series of mega-covetable python-trimmed snapback hats. Most recently, he’s worked as the creative strategy and design director for his favorite team, the Bulls. So, yeah: the guy knows jerseys.

The one he’s wearing today, he points out, is a Bulls retro, and not a throwback. There’s a difference, he’ll explain, enthusiastically pointing out the 1998 NBA Finals patch perfectly placed opposite the league’s iconic logo. If the number across his chest—Dennis Rodman’s 91, rather than Michael Jordan’s 23—is a little surprising for the longtime Jordan collaborator, well, that’s kind of the point.

“You know, I wanted to come a little unique today,” he says with a smirk.  

To kick things off, Mitchell & Ness’s MLB Cooperstown Collection will drop a collection of Just Don shorts around Opening Day that celebrates baseball’s four 1990s expansion teams. While elevated nostalgia will always be an ethos, one thing Don C’s pledging to deliver with this appointment is NBD: never been done.

“Like I say, as culture moves, man, there are no boundaries or rules,” he says. “Rules are made for exceptional characters to break them.”

GQ spoke with Don C about his new role, lessons learned from his late friend Virgil Abloh, and how the NBA can improve its All-Star Game. 

So what innovation can we expect you to bring to Mitchell & Ness?

Never been done. I call it “NBD”: We’re all about not taking what another company does and trying to copy. It’s all about innovation, it’s all about new ideas. Together we delivered the python hats, which I think is what put Just Don on the map. That was not in the marketplace. Being able to take authentic basketball shorts and adding pockets to make it more of a lifestyle item. Had never been done. Now it’s such a staple piece in fashion collections, but that’s something we brought to the table. And now we’ve got new ideas we about to bring to the table. Right out the gate, we’ve developed a silhouette or two that hasn’t been brought to the table. 

You just talked about copying. Is there too much copying going on in terms of collaborations between brands these days?

Man, that’s a big issue that I try to always constructively encourage our community to go against. I always say we’re all inspired. When you see Allen Iverson and you ask him who inspired him, he says, “Mike. Mike is my guy. Everything I did I was inspired by Michael Jordan.” But Allen Iverson don’t look like Michael Jordan. His game wasn’t like Michael Jordan. He was just inspired by Mike and he took the principles of Mike and applied it to Allen. That’s what made him the best version of Allen Iverson. So that’s what I encourage all the young people, because we’re all looking at the same references. We’re all looking at the same moodboards. 

Out of all the times you’d run out of a club or show you were promoting back in the day to grab a throwback for an interested buyer, is there one story you love telling the most?

Man, there’s so many good ones. I used to promote parties at a club called Biology Bar, and people knew I had throwbacks in my trunk. So they would call me when they would pull up like, “Yo Don, what you got in the car so I can look fresh in the club?” And I would go out and meet them. There was an artist named Bump J. Man, he was from the streets. He was known, honestly, and I don’t want to put him on blast, for being a notorious street dude back then. So he didn’t know me. And he was like, “Man, I should rob this dude. He got these jerseys.” It was because I knew his blood brother and then my close friend Ibn [Jasper] was close to him that he didn’t pull it off. But I was putting myself in jeopardy.  

What was the apex of the throwback era? 

Maybe the Hard Knock Life Tour, because Jay-Z would wear a different throwback every night. I give credit to Fabolous, and innovators like Big Boi, who was one of the early people wearing retro jerseys. But once the Roc-A-Fella community took it, it blew it up to a whole new level. Which ironically sorta played it out. They took it to such a new level that Jay had to [sings] change clothes. 

How old does a jersey have to be to qualify as a throwback these days?

To be technical, throwback is an NFL mark. I don’t know if you know that. But we kind of use it loosely. As a universal slang term, we call any retro jersey a throwback. So technically the rule is—because Mitchell & Ness, we are the purveyors of this—five years at least. I know that’s pretty bad because that doesn’t sound long enough. And even if it’s more than five years, it has to have had some change to it. But pretty much every team swaps out their jersey every year. Those are the kind of things that determine whether it’s a retro item or not. 

Mitchell & Ness isn’t your only creative director title. The Bulls named you their creative strategy and design advisor last season. What’s the best perk of being part of the Bulls organization? 

I’ve been a Bulls fan since I was like 4 years old. It feels good to be able to rep my local team. Everybody in Chicago loves the Bulls—and globally. So I just want to continue to message how amazing the brand is on a global scale, how it transcends basketball. The most rewarding [part] is working with young people in the community. I meet with young people at schools, I meet with young people at other programs. I let them work on projects with me. All the creative projects, we infuse young people from the city of Chicago. 

I was over in Paris for the Bulls game against the Pistons in January and was blown away by how many Bulls fans were there. The easy answer to my question is Michael Jordan, but tell me why is the Bulls’ brand so strong in Europe 25 years after MJ played his last game for the franchise? 

The small answer is MJ. MJ played such a huge role in that. He’s such a global icon that he hasn’t worn a Bulls jersey in over 25 years, yet we still lust over Bulls jerseys. And we ended up getting a big European player [Toni Kukoc], so we were one of the innovators with that movement. I say this all the time: People know the Bulls logo sometimes before they know the NBA logo. Some areas they go, “Oh, I know, that’s Chicago Bulls,” but you show them Jerry West and they’re like, “Oh, I’m not sure.” And what keeps it authentic is the Bulls don’t really switch up their marks. We the only team in major sports that has never switched their logo. There’s no reason, because it’s the best.  

Virgil’s been honored a ton of different ways since his passing 16 months ago, but the Bulls wore an Off-White collab in Paris—where does that one rank?

It was special for me because it was through the lens I love—sports. But even when I was talking to the CEO, Andrea [Grilli] from Off-White, he was saying you just don’t understand how many references Virgil would use from the Bulls and MJ and how influential it was throughout his design ethos because it was a big part of his past and his history growing up being a fan. I don’t think a kid who grew up in the 90s has not been impacted by Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Whether it’s good or bad. 

Is there one lesson Virgil taught you that sticks more than any other? 

Absolutely. He encouraged me to welcome others to be a part of the process. I used to be kind of shut off—that’s kind of a Chicago mentality. Virgil really encouraged me to welcome others—like, let’s hear what this person has to say. So that’s something that’s key that I will always cherish among so many things. 

I know you’re an MJ guy. I know you’re also cool with LeBron James. Did LeBron becoming the NBA’s all-time leading scorer earlier this month make you re-evaluate, just a little bit, the GOAT debate? 

Man, you know with me there is no GOAT debate, with where I come from. But here’s the credit I want to give to LeBron: He is absolutely the greatest of this generation and he should take pride in being LeBron James. Comparison is the robbery of joy. Let’s celebrate his current moment. Let’s not even bring up Michael Jordan right now. Let’s celebrate LeBron’s moment. So that’s what I’ve just been encouraging. We are witnessing greatness happening right now and I believe he is, when it comes to longevity, redefining it, playing at such a high level in his [20th] year. It’s amazing. I don’t think we’ve seen anything like it in any sport. I just want to keep applauding him, man, and his longevity is taking him to No. 1 in every category. 

Did you watch the NBA All-Star Game? 

Yes, I did. 

Is there any way it can be fixed, or at least improved, from a fashion lens? Because from a competition standpoint, it’s broken. 

Absolutely. My suggestion is we need more attention to details of the jerseys and warmups. Like in the mid-90s—’95 and ’96, to be exact—the NBA All-Star Game uniform was at its apex. San Antonio, and the year before that in Phoenix, was on a whole ‘nother level. In Phoenix it was inspired by the southwestern theme, and when it went to San Antonio it was inspired by a fiesta, Texan theme. Now we need to be more inspired by the city. Next year in Indianapolis, I would like to see it be race car-inspired or something. Something that’s key to the culture of where All-Star is. And that’s the one thing I didn’t like about the draft right before the game. We didn’t have the jerseys ahead of time. We didn’t know what jersey they were going to wear. I’d also like to encourage Nike to not do any more heat press jerseys. I think people like the stitching. Now, Nike’s going to say innovation is the reason, but I’m like, come on, man. We like the jerseys to be stitched. The numbers and marks, everything needs to be stitched. That’s something I’d really like to see.