Behind the lines, the Nike Air Max 1 Premium: ‘By Day & By Night’
With the release of the Nike Air Max 1 Premium: ‘By Day’,” and the Nike Air Max 1 Premium: ‘By Night’ we take a look at the inspiration of the shoe and take a trip down memory lane to explain the design behind this specific silhouette. Long before Tinker Hatfield made his first steps as a shoe designer on the Oregon-based Nike Campus, he was hired by the Swoosh first to illustrate a marketing book and later as a corporate architect in ’81. When he took his services to the design team in ’85 Tinker began applying his architectural background to his sneaker designs, which were during that time not part of any marketing drive, so he could play around with ideas, which resulted in iconic models such as the Air Trainer 1, Air Safari and the one and only Air Max 1.
Tinker says about the Nike Air Max 1 design (or Nike Air Max 87, how it was called back then): “I went to Paris around the same time and saw the Pompidou Center and was struck by how Renzo Piano and his team had turned this building inside out. That helped me come up with the idea of the visible air window – to help people understand the new airbag technology used in the shoe,” this was when Nike began to tell a story through design to make it revolutionary.
But it wasn’t just the design that influenced him to create the Air Max 1; it was further the OG white/red and white/blue colorways that took cues from the red and blue tubes & pipes as well as visible structural elements that were turned inside-out by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. Now, Nike pays homage to the incredible story behind the design of the OG AM1s with the release of the Nike Air Max 1 Premium ‘By Day & By Night’ that feature design elements that have a striking resemblance to the building. See below to compare.
The release of the Nike Air Max 1 Premium: ‘By Day’ & Nike Air Max 1 Premium: ‘By Night’ will be on the 20th of September.
Images: Centre Pompidou & Nike
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