story

My name is Ernesto Mayz, I am a senior PLM on the Nike Classics team and I’ve been at Nike for almost seven years. For the last year I’ve been able to work on some incredible products, think about Dunk Be True To Your School series,

The Space Jam collection with Air Force One and LeBron Retro and the upcoming Halloween series with Dunk Air Force One and Presto. Believe it or not, the Air Force One Skeleton started on a factory trip.

We asked some of our partners to customise the Air Force One however they wanted to, and the winning design did the skeleton. His inspiration, he actually took a scan of a foot, and then used that as a reference as he started customising the shoe.

The original sample was actually built on a triple white Air Force One. However, for the first release, we added a glow-in-the-dark out-sole as an iconic detail to the execution. 

If you remember, for orange, we took it to the next level and went full mid-sole/out-sole which we know is something that really made people excited. Obviously, when it comes to the design, it was really all about this graphic 

But we also wanted to make sure the details were taken care of, the tongue label, the sock-liner were key in making sure we were telling the same story. And then of course, the glow-in-the-dark details that really takes this project to the next level. 

The first time I appeared on SNKRS live, it was about introducing the orange colour-way of the Skeleton series. But the most amazing part of that experience was that we were able to connect with the community to help decide what the next colour-way should be. Green Goo? Or should we go purple? 

Deciding between these two colour-ways? Almost impossible. But I’m with the people, I think the purple colour-way is the best colour way. 2022 is the 40th anniversary of the Air Force One, it’s gonna be crazy. 

Behind the Design

AF1 Skeleton