story

"Every idea has an original story. This shoe is just one and the same. We're going to sit down with Tinker Hatfield about the Air Max 1".

"I'm Robbie Williams, global brand manager of sneaker culture and footwear curation for the Department of Nike Archives. And this is Tinker Hatfield. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. Take me back to a young Tinker …"

"… in 1986. Well, I remember it pretty clearly because I was new to the sneaker business. Nike was actually having a bit of trouble. We were out looking to try and find some inspiration, so I was in Paris and I came back and drew this …"

"… shoe up. That original inspiration, in this case, building turned inside out. You could just take, and you don't turn everything inside out, but you take a little bit. We spent a lot of time trying to convince people that this shoe was …"

"… not only going to work, but it was going to possibly just change the way people looked at sneakers. It does reach a bump and a roll and some failure. What were the first signs of that failure? We found out that there were some issues with the size of the bag".

"When you're trying to be the first, you just learn along the way. I think that you just have to have an attitude of perfection. You want perfection, you know you're not going to get there, but you want to get there".

"Luckily, we have the versions of the shoe so we can see the evolution. Yes. Look at it. Let's get into it. So here, we have a 2013 Air Max OG. Let's pull the Zero over here …"

"… and just give me some comparison differences. This design was the first one on the paper. The problem with this was that it was literally, from top to bottom, too futuristic".

"Sometimes it's good though to, as a designer, to go further out, and then you can always reel it back or scale it back, and that's exactly what happened here. I think it's time that we look and see where we are at now, and see what we've done".

"Wow. When I look at this in its truest form and in the original colourway …"

"… I think of how many times I've seen it in different forms and people interpret it differently. There's something about this particular one that still holds true. I think it's a true testament to design and creativity and failing forward".

"Yeah. "The reality is that we often make mistakes or we're in a learning process, and you have to then be self-critical and go, 'OK, we've got to make this change'. Tinker, this has been incredible. Yeah. This has been an honour, a moment".

"Thank you so much for what you've contributed to culture, not only in footwear and design, but just in sneakers all together. Thank you. It's been great".

Visionaries

Untold Story of the AM1 '86