So the dust has settled for another year on one of the biggest dates in the streewear and sneaker calendar: Air Max Day. Every year, the Swoosh celebrates the release of the first ever Air Max sneaker on March 26, and every year they do something special.
But this year was different: in 2017 the original Air Max turned the big 3-0 and Nike unveiled a steady stream of quality releases to celebrate. From updating key classics to bringing Nike Air Max 720 Womens back old icons and releasing the certified people’s favorite, a lot went on.
This year also marked the point when Nike came a step closer to us actually walking on air with the release of the all-new VaporMax. The sneaker lived up to its hype – so much so that the COMME des GAR?ONS collab already got a re-release just after the OG dropped and got shot across the community (view our round up of the best styled shots here).
Here’s our round up of everything else that went down across Highsnobiety through March for Air Max Day. To get started, here’s streetwear and sneaker grandee, Gary Warnett, in our latest Conversations podcast on the legacy and importance of Air Max.
We then deep-dived into the story of how Nike invented its latest sneaker alongside an interactive guide to the silhouette. We took a closer look at one of the first Nike Internationalist Donna VaporMax collabs to surface from the industrial designer and long-time Nike collaborator, Marc Newson, before German rapper Ace Tee showed us why Nike VaporMax is the future. We also got an exclusive chat with French rapper Joke about their second album, their new single, and why he’s into the VaporMax as well.
Honoring the legacy of the Air Max’s place in Europe as well as the creative vision of Tinker Hatfield, we went to three European capitals and spoke to real creatives about what it takes to realize their own creativity, how to actually do it successfully, and how to be good at it despite the odds.
The Air Max line is arguably the most conceptually complete sneaker line that’s ever been created. We argued the case for that as we dissected the story behind the Nike Air Max 1 Womens controversial design of the first Air Max 1. We also investigated Adidas ZX Flux Dámské what the Air Max line means for the sneakerhead community, as well as the legacy of collaborations that the Air Max line inspired across the board. We also took at closer look at the new atmos x Nike pack of the re-released people’s favorite, the atmos Air Max 1 “Elephant” and the Air Jordan 3.
One of the hottest drops for Air Max Day this year was the re-release of the one that started it all: the Air Max 1 OG (2017) which Nike dropped in its original ‘university red’ colorway and its equally loved blue counterpart a few days later. We compared and contrasted the 2017 re-release with its 1987 original so you didn’t have to.
On the collaboration tip, another long-time partner to the Swoosh took up the challenge of a resurgent Millennium-era classic, with a luxe black Adidas Nmd Damen and gold hi-top take on the AM97. We inspected Riccardo Tisci’s efforts and we liked it.
There was a hectic stream of live events happening around the world, from Travis Scott shutting down LA’s Air Max Day party to our own live coverage of the special Air Max party at the place that inspired it all: Paris’ Georges Pompidou center. Take a look at what went down, below, or watch a quick recap here.