story

My name is Reggie. I'm a product line manager at Nike working on Air Max. My name is Mariko. I am 27 years old. I'm a footwear developer for Nike. I'm Cody

I'm 26 years old. I'm a footwear colour designer. The BW has like an interesting story behind it and kind of like a rise to fame. Originally it wasn't a shoe that Nike was planning for 1991.

'There was a hurry up offense put together by Nike to craft something that was going to be a little more similar to what can be called such as the Air Max 90, Air Max Lite and Air Max 1. As an upgrade to the Air Max 90

'the BW had more air, more visible air, more cushioning, more support, more flexibility, more attitude and just more everything as the original advertisement alluded to. From the very start of the project

the teams' top priority was to honour the OG and replicate every detail, 1 for 1. The first thing the team did was visit DNA, where every iconic model from the past is stored. So we had the OG

we had different retros like the 2016 version in hand and now from there, we had the opportunity to decide what additional improvements we could make. The 2021 Retro is a special one because this will be the closest 

to OG that we can reference. For example, through the years, the BW silhouette has gotten thinner and thinner and when we visited DNA, this was one part that immediately caught our attention. As a team, we paid extra attention to the details

that were included on the OG. And essentially reverse engineered each of these details. It's always a balance between staying true to the attitude of the BW while pushing it into a new space for the 2021 consumer.

Our duty as a team is to preserve Nike's history and give consumers the chance to experience a shoe exactly how people experienced it in 1991.

Behind the Design

Air Max BW