Nike Bets On the Air As the New It Sneaker

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Last Friday, I stood in Paris’s Palais Brongniart—a historic building that used to house the French stock exchange—piercing a pair of new blue Air Max Plus sneakers. Nike was hosting a design workshop with the upcycling and vintage organization Collectivo Paris, and designer Lola of K’Raba Studio was showing me how to deck out my new kicks with a series of small silver hoops.

Lola had been tasked by the brand to re-envision one of its classic Nike Air silhouettes. Her solution: to loop chunky pieces of metal around the laces and punch as many holes through the fabric as possible, mimicking the maximalist, over-layered jewelry aesthetic that has become her signature. “I love,” she told me, “these two different feelings.” To her, there was undeniable synergy between the sporty feeling of the shoe and the punkness of the piercing. It was a reflection of how she dresses.

The day before, I sat with Nike’s lead footwear designer for lifestyle innovation, Juliana Sagat, to discuss how she manages to juggle fashion and sport when creating new footwear. “I think about expression and experience,” she said. “Of course we want the shoe to be comfortable, but we want it to be stylish as well.”

Sagat has been seeing a new sporty aesthetic on the streets of Paris in anticipation of this summer’s Olympics. French girls like to “mix something very classy with something sporty," she said, adding, "In Paris, you live a hectic life, so you don’t have time to change. You want to be able to dress for work, for drinks with friends, for a party.” Her outfit felt like proof of concept: She was wearing a light blue Martine Rose x Nike football jersey, and in her curly hair were silver hair pins dangling with thick heart bobbles that echoed the chunkiness of her hoop earrings. On her feet were the Nike Air Max Tn’s I customized.

Sagat and Lola—along with over 40 Nike athletes, from gymnast Jordan Chiles to runner Sha'Carri Richardson to Serena Williams—were in Paris to celebrate the unveiling of Nike’s 2024 Olympic kits. During a show last Thursday titled Nike on Air, a handful of athletes took the stage for a presentation that highlighted what competitors will be wearing on the track and pitch this July and celebrated the innovation of Nike Air technology. To get to the stage, guests walked through Air immersion rooms to take in the history of Nike Air and witness what the team has designed for the athletes this coming summer.

Nike has been known for its Air innovation, with technology that has made athletes faster than ever, for a long time now. But it’s also known for creating the kind of sneakers that people who have never dreamed of gold or set foot on a track want to wear. From a fashion perspective—that is to say, my perspective—the design is as interesting as the tech.

After the show, all the guests were welcomed up onto the stage to see a particularly unusual design experiment in which Nike's creative team collaborated with 13 athletes to re-envision the sneaker not for competition but for a dream world. To kick off the process, the Nike Sport Research Lab spoke with athletes and then leveraged generative AI in order to produce hundreds of images per shoe, before zoning in on what worked best for each one.

I, along with a handful of other fashion editors, found myself hovering over Sha’Carri Richardson’s iteration, which featured the white fabric of the sneaker woven around an invisible leg like the fabric ribbons of a Miu Miu ballet flat. French soccer player Kylian Mbappé’s looked like a sleek platform wedge without the heel. British runner Dina Asher-Smith’s featured a curved silver sliver that curved like a springboard sole. While those shoes are built for a life none of us live, it still felt like evidence that Nike Air's DNA is rife for disruption—and versatile enough to handle it.

The morning after the show, following the design workshop, I put on my customized and pierced Nike Air sneakers to take a walk. I saw chic Parisians in worn-in Air Max Plus Drifts, kicking their feet up at an outdoor breakfast table while smoking cigarettes. A runner in tiny track shorts sprinted past me in the Nike Air Pegasus 40. A few hours later, someone tapped me on a shoulder at a vintage shop to ask me where my Nike Airs were from before pointing out the almost-matching, non-pierced pair on her feet.

As the Olympics approach in the coming summer months, it feels evident to me that a new It shoe is in the making. Whether worn for city life or built for performance, Nike Air will be all over the streets and on our screens before we know it.

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Air Max Plus Drift

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