March is the month of the Air Max, before we get into the subject with the new releases, we should review some curiosities of one of the most influential sagas in the history of sneakers. Welcome to our cabinet of curiosities.
Air Max was born in 1987, but air was invented much earlier. That of sneakers, I mean. It was in the 1970s when Phil Knight welcomed two guys who had come up with the idea of putting air in sneakers. Frank Rudy and Bob Bogert had developed inner air chambers for ski boots and thought they might be useful in their running shoes.
Phil Knight didn’t like the idea of running on air, it didn’t seem safe. Bogert asked him if he used a car. What’s inside the wheels? Air.
Bogert worked with a guy named Rudy and married a woman named Trudy. Trudy suggested that he should buy Nike stock, which made them millionaires who dedicated part of their fortune to research grants.
We called AIR, but Nike’s original choice was sulfur hexafluoride, a gas with very high global warming potential that was used until 2006 inside its AIR units. Since then, they have been using SF6-free and use 100% nitrogen instead.
Nike and Phil Knight own at least five airplanes for the use and enjoyment of executives, athletes and guests. Some of them are decorated with details reminiscent of some of their iconic models. Of course the Air Max 90s are one of them.
One of those Air Max planes have a bonus-track story. The first lines of the collaboration between Kanye and Nike were drawn on a plane decorated like an Air Max TL 99.
But it’s not just Air Max planes. In 2016 Portland’s public bike service was inspired by Nike to decorate 10% of its fleet. The inspiration was not casual, Nike had been one of the main drivers of the project.
Although it is often said that the Air Max 97 was inspired by the Japanese bullet train, Christian Tresser‘s early sketches shows that the Air Max 97 was inspired by something slower, a bicycle.
You can find details of some Air Max in other silhouettes, and there is a reason for that. Christian Tresser, the designer of the Air Max 97, also created Tailwind 2, Zoom Spiridon and Mercurial R9.
Certain styles establish an intimate relationship with a specific place. This is what happened with the Air Max 97 and Italy, whose relationship is told in Le Silver, a book that deals exclusively with the Air Max 97 phenomenon in Italian subcultures.
Nike is not the only brand that has used Air Max in its sneakers. Other brands that were owned by Nike at the time, such as Cole Haan or Savier, have also used them.
We’ve seen musicians, athletes and artists have their own special editions, but politicians? Long before Travis Scott or Skepta, George W. Bush received an exclusive edition of the Air Max 90’s, the Nike Air Pres.
The Air 180 campaign was the first global campaign in which Nike brought together athletes and artists. Osbert Parker, David Cronenberg, Industrial Light and Magic or illustrators Takenobu Igarashi and Ralph Steadman interpreted the 180.
Inspiration strikes at any time. And it caught Perry Auger at breakfast. He was trying to create a larger Air Max unit and thought they could use the way plastic milk bottles are made, by injection molding. That’s why some Air Max 93 campaigns feature strange bottles.
Visit the FOOTDISTRICT page dedicated to Air Max and choose the one which best reflects your style.