Guide
What was District 23?
District 23 was Jordan Brand's community hub in Paris for the summer of the 2024 Olympic Games. It opened at the end of June and ran for about six weeks, into the first week of August 2024.
The name refers to 23, the number Michael Jordan wore for the Chicago Bulls. The headquarters sat in the former flagship of the discount chain Tati at Barbès, in the 18th arrondissement, and the programme reached out to courts and parks around the neighbourhood.
Key facts
| Run | 29 June to the first week of August 2024 (about six weeks) |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Former Tati Barbès department store, Boulevard Barbès, Paris 18e |
| Creative director | Youssouf Fofana, founder of the label Maison Château Rouge |
| Exhibition co-curator | Easy Otabor, owner of Anthony Gallery in Chicago |
| Retail partner | Foot Locker, with the region's first Foot Locker x Jordan store nearby |
| Courts | Pigalle Duperré, Boris Vian and Square Léon, plus the women's club Paris Basket 18 |
| Online | A virtual version of the hub in the Nike App (Jordan mode), in English and French |
Floor by floor
Ground floor. A boutique for Maison Château Rouge, a library of sports and culture books, a live DJ, a T-shirt personalisation station and a café.
Second floor. The exhibition Diaspora Renaissance, with work by 23 contemporary artists. Six of them were commissioned to reinterpret the Air Jordan 1. Named artists include photographer Gabriel Moses, Alvin Armstrong and Maty Biayenda.
Third floor. Workspace for the summer school, which was not open to the public. Young Parisian creatives followed a textile-arts and design curriculum led by Fofana, including how to start a brand.
On the courts
Basketball was the entry point. The programme ran one-on-one tournaments, open play and shootarounds on neighbourhood courts, with the stated aim of keeping local young people's access to courts uninterrupted while the Games took over the city.
Food
The collective Mam'ayoka, a group of mothers from the 18th arrondissement, cooked West African dishes such as thieboudienne for visitors.
The virtual hub
For people who could not be in Paris, Nike promoted a virtual District 23 inside the Nike App's Jordan mode, available only in English and French. It showed highlights of top players in Paris, news from the hub and polls on favourite basketball moves and street-style looks.
Why Barbès
Fofana's label is named after the Château Rouge quarter next to Barbès, and his stated aim was for District 23 to be "the memento we want to leave behind for youth from the 18th arrondissement". The Tati building itself carries decades of neighbourhood memory; read its story on Tati Barbès.