Narrowing down the absolute best Nike shoes for men feels like a fittingly Olympian task. Since setting up shop in the mid-’60s, the Portland-based juggernaut has churned out one hot sneaker after another, expanding into lifestyle footwear while upholding its commitment to performance excellence.
But no great sneaker brand is built on hype (or cultural cachet) alone. Flash-in-the-pan collaborations and sought-after signature models are great for short-term gains, but to be in it for the long haul you need a roster of silhouettes available to folks who aren’t interested in waking up for a raffle. Nike knows this all too well—it didn’t become the biggest name in sneakers without crafting a whole lot of heat that never cools down.
Sure, the SNKRS app has its time and place, but you can fill an elite-level shoe rack without ever downloading it. These days, in fact, the vast majority of Nike’s most influential kicks are available on its website or at any old sneaker shop in your town, no plug necessary. So to help you lace up like the pros, we compiled 8 legacy-making silhouettes from the Swoosh you should be familiar with, each of ’em primed to make you the star of your very own Wieden+Kennedy spot.
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The Nike Air Force 1 Low
For even the greenest sneaker newbies, the Air Force 1 needs little introduction. When it hit the hardwood in 1982, the AF1 seemed destined for the Hall of Fame of hoops kicks. Over the years, though, it became something much more surprising: one of the most iconic sneakers of all time, a silhouette so beloved, especially in low-top form, that it’s damn-near synonymous with the Swoosh itself. Its chunky soles and leather uppers cemented it as a streetwear staple beloved by New York hip-hop legends and New York thespians alike, and while it’s been rendered in everything from silk brocade to Louis Vuitton leather, it’s still hard to beat in coke-white (or black, if you’re feeling nasty).
The Nike Cortez
Decades before Jeremy Allen White made it a staple of his endlessly replicable wardrobe, the Nike Cortez was an icon of laid-back cool. Though the silhouette debuted in 1972 as Nike’s first-ever track shoe, much like the Air Force 1, it’s long since transcended those roots. (Run a 10K in these and your knees might never recover). If the AF1 is the quintessential NYC Nike, California is ruled by the Cortez—especially when paired with shorts and white tube socks pulled over the calves. Over 50 years after it first conquered the running market, the Cortez feels as fresh as any of its buzzier counterparts, and it remains a heckuva lot more approachable.
The Nike Blazer
The Swoosh’s third-ever silhouette dropped in 1973 as a basketball shoe, quickly cementing itself as one of the coolest high-tops in the game. (When you’re the preferred sneaker of George “The Iceman” Gervin, cool is kind of stitched into your sole.) Over the years, Blazers have endeared themselves to gym and skate rats in equal measure, who prize the silhouette’s pared-down looks and durable, hard-wearing build. (One of the most notable iterations of the shoe is a SB model designed with those exact features in mind.) Like so many old-school Nike kicks, the Blazer tends to look best in the hardwood colorways of its adolescence, but it’s also been the subject of buzzy collaborations with the likes of Stüssy, Off-White, and Sacai. If you’re looking for a no-frills sneaker that plays just as nicely with jeans as it does with shorts, look no further.
The Nike Dunk Low
Ask a sneakerhead if the Nike Dunk is cooked and you’ll get an answer the length of a Tolstoy novel. We’ll save you the trouble. In a word: maybe? In two words: who cares? All that hand-wringing can’t mask an essential truth: the Dunk Low is a near-perfect silhouette, and has been since it first dropped in 1985. It’s evolved in leaps and bounds since then, going from the hardwood to the skate park to the streets of every fashion capital of the world, becoming one of the few bona fide ‘It’ sneakers of the 2020s in the process. Do yourself a favor and skip the off-kilter colorways in favor of simple, classic collegiate hues. Or better yet, pick up a pair of Panda Dunks—a killer pair of black and white sneakers is always cool.
The Nike Killshot 2
Once all-but-forgotten in the Swoosh’s archives, the Nike Killshot 2 exploded in popularity more recently thanks, in no small part, to an exclusive deal with J.Crew. During the retailer’s #menswear-era boom, the Killshot 2 became a go-to for folks looking for kicks they could style with everything from pocket tees and khakis to lived-in Oxford shirts and raw jeans. For a while, J.Crew literally couldn’t keep the shoe on the shelves, blowing through restocks with the speed of a hotly-anticipated Jordan drop on the SNKRS app. That era of menswear may be over, but make no mistake about it: the Killshot 2 remains a wildly versatile sneaker worth a spot on your shoe rack—just ask Josh O’Connor.
The Nike Air Max 1
You can’t assemble a list of the best easy-access Nike kicks of all time without mentioning a Tinker Hatfield masterpiece (or five). The legendary sneaker designer has more classics to his name than Jay-Z, but the Air Max 1 remains one of his most enduring, the alpha of the brand’s influential Air Max line. Ever seen a pair of Nikes with a “bubbly” Air Unit in the sole? The AM1 is why—it’s ground zero for one of the coolest sneaker innovations in Swoosh history. It also hasn’t aged a day since it first dropped in 1987, somehow bridging the gap between street-ready retro looks and modern-day functionality. Today, Air Max 1s are kind of like a sneakerhead cheat code—lace up a pair and you just earned yourself a little extra credibility.
The Nike Air Huarache
When Tinker Hatfield designed the Huarache in the early ‘90s, internal sentiment at Nike HQ was confused, to say the least. Back then, the sneaker’s waterskiing-inspired silhouette—built around a neoprene sleeve with a modified back strap—was plenty off-kilter, but what really threw Beaverton’s finest for a loop was what the sneaker didn’t have: a big ol’ Swoosh splashed across the exterior. The Huarache was so unique, Hatfield remembers thinking, that it simply didn’t need a logo, a canny instinct that anticipated Nike’s commitment to performance above all else—and inspired no shortage of forward-thinking, straight-up weird sneakers down the line. Demand for the Huarache might’ve reached its modern-day apex in the 2010s, but 30-plus years after its debut there’s still nothing quite like it in the Swoosh’s archive. These days, it feels equal parts retro and futuristic, a pleasantly chunky silhouette that inadvertently foreshadowed menswear’s ongoing fascination with increasingly gargantuan kicks. For around $150, you can’t ask for much more than that.
The Nike Terminator High
Think of the Nike Terminator High as the midway point between the Blazer and the Air Jordan 1, a court classic that remains a key piece of basketball sneaker evolution. Terminators were a staple of college hoops in the ‘80s, famously donned by the Georgetown Hoyas in a player-exclusive colorway during their legendary 1984-85 season. Head coach John Thompson had worked with the Swoosh earlier that decade and used his influence in Beaverton to get the champs signature kicks befitting their reign. While their competition laced up Dunks, the Hoyas—and only the Hoyas—rocked Terminators, cementing their legacy as the type of kicks sneakerheads line up in droves to cop. Thankfully, after a 2022 resurgence it’s easier than ever to pick up a pair—Nike now keeps the Terminator stocked in a variety of rad, retro-inflected colorways.
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