Year First Released: 1982
It’s hard to imagine nowadays, but the Air Force 1’s story nearly ended just after it began.
Introduced as a high-top in 1982, and followed by the release of its low-top form in 1983, the Air Force 1 was Nike’s first basketball shoe to use the brand’s signature Air cushioning technology. Despite being groundbreaking in that regard, Nike planned to put an end to the sneaker’s production in 1984. However, due to its popularity in Baltimore, owners of the city’s Cinderella Shoes and Charley Rudo Sports stores urged the sportswear brand to keep releasing the shoe.
“It was [Charley Rudo Sports owner] Harold Rudo and myself who came up with this idea of resurrecting the Air Force 1,” Cinderella Shoes owner Paul Blinken said in a video retrospective. “They thought we were fucking crazy. They said, ‘But I believe in you guys.You guys are crazy enough to ask for it, we’re crazy enough to make it.’ We were forced to take 1,200 pairs of each color: a white/royal blue and a white/chocolate brown. We took ‘em, we sold ‘em right out.”
This success led to the “Color of the Month” program which, saw new color-ups of the Air Force 1 High hit the stores on a monthly basis. Retailer Downtown Locker Room eventually got involved, and soon Baltimore was a must-visit destination for people seeking sneakers from areas like New York and Washington, D.C.
Nike had been swayed, and the Air Force 1 continued to release sporadically throughout the mid-to-late ‘80s. It became ubiquitous on basketball courts and street corners, maintaining its presence on the East Coast. It was embraced by hip-hop artists and visionary designers like Dapper Dan, who applied high-fashion prints from brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton to the shoe’s panels.
By the time the early ‘90s hit, the Air Force 1 was much more commonplace. This is also the period when the white-on-white Air Force 1 Low, widely considered to be the most important version of the sneaker, started showing up in stores. Keeping a crisp pair of white AF1s in rotation was a must, to the point where some collectors, like DJ Clark Kent, were known for only wearing a pair a single time before moving on to a fresh one.
The Air Force 1 became a full-on cultural phenomenon in the 2000s. Nelly’s 2002 single “Air Force Ones” was proof that the trend had extended far beyond the I-95 corridor. NBA star Rasheed Wallace played in them night in, night out—so much so that Nike started making him special-edition versions.
In Japan, the Air Force 1’s popularity led to a new kind of adoration. Nigo’s A Bathing Ape brand created a spinoff of the sneaker known as the Bape Sta, a shoe which was immensely popular in its own right and led to dozens of other imitators. This Air Force 1 knockoff phenomenon still takes place today and has led to Nike filing a number of lawsuits for trademark infringement.
The Air Force 1 had something of a full circle moment in 2022 when late designer Virgil Abloh’s Louis Vuitton collaboration was released. The shoes were largely inspired by the aforementioned customs of the ‘80s and represented Abloh’s aim to combine the worlds of hip-hop, streetwear, and high fashion.
To date, the Air Force 1 has been released in countless colorways, material variations, shapes, and sizes. There are Air Force 1 boots and Air Force 1 mules. There have been collaborations with partners ranging from small boutique shops to one of the world’s biggest fashion houses. Nike’s released Lux crocodile variations that retailed at $2,000. Keeping your white-on-white Air Force 1s clean has even become passé in some circles. It’s a shoe that has literally seen it all and remains an icon.
“It’s completely not a shoe,” Abloh told Financial Times months before his death. “It’s an art object. It doesn’t even need to be on someone’s feet.” —Riley Jones
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