story

"Here in Baltimore, our culture is nuanced. That's what makes the city special. Even our creativity is all a product of the city. This is Color of the Month."

"What's up? I'm Abdul. This is Color of the Month. And we are here outside of Cinderella Shoes on the corner of Park Heights and Spaulding. I was born and raised in West Africa, in Sierra Leone, and I moved to America at the age of 14. When I landed at BWI..."

"And walked off the plane and saw somebody who works at the airport wearing a pair of White Air Force 1 Highs with a Silver Check, I'd never seen that shoe before. And as I started school, I kind of saw how big of a presence and impact it has..."

"On the whole city of Baltimore. Once I got my footings right in the city, I went out and looked for that shoe. And that's how I kind of discovered some of these sneaker stores in my community. In 2017, for the 35th anniversary of the Air Force 1,..."

"Nike commissioned a mural on this wall behind me that had an image and a sort of like a cartoon story of how the Air Force 1 started and Nike was ready to shelf it and it was brought back by the three retailers from Baltimore..."

"Known as the Three Amigos. If you were in the city, you came to Cinderella Shoes. New Yorkers would come from out of town to come shop here. DJ Clark Kent used to be in here all the time. You could get Air Force 1s here that were not available anywhere up and down in America, honestly."

"Man, it was a beautiful time. The Color of the Month program was around before I even came to America. At some point in the early '90s, a lot of those colorways came back. There was a rumor that a lot of these colorways were based on..."

"Our Baltimore high school colors. We kind of felt like this was made for us. We just got done talking about the Air Force 1 outside of Cinderella Shoes. We're about to shoot over to the East Side and go see my boy Ayman and chop it up about the Air Force 1 and what his love is for the shoe."

"What's going on? I'm Ayman. This is Carpet Company. I co-own this with my brother Osama. So we're in East Baltimore right now. This is the new headquarters where the community can come in, talk clothes,..."

"Print clothes, skate, talk shoes. What was your first memory of the Air Force 1? Man, I remember when I was in Alabama, my brother got me a pair. I was like eight, nine years old. I was in second grade. I remember looking at them. I was like, 'They look cool.' I put them on. I looked down, looked at the toe cap."

"I was like, 'These go hard.' I just like All White Lows. That's my favorite shoe. This is a shoe that's never going to die. Yeah. Describe the Air Force 1 in one word. Forever. Classic, because of how close it was to not even existing..."

"And that legacy it's had over the last 40 years now has just been incredible. The shoe came out in 1982. In those days, every model had a shelf life. Two years later or something like that, it was..."

"The Air Force 1 was about to be cycled out. The three retailers from Baltimore, Charley Rudo Sports, Downtown Locker Room and Cinderella Shoes went to Nike and they were like, 'This is a shoe that's really, really big in the city of Baltimore. How can we keep it alive?'"

"Nike asked them at that time, an astronomical amount of sneakers they had to put it in an order. I think it was like 1200 pairs each store had to carry at that time. The shoes came in only to the city of Baltimore and they flew out."

"That actually kicked off the Color of the Month program because these retailers were like, 'All right. So we actually want to see if you guys can give us a White with a Chocolate Swoosh on it, a White with a Royal Blue Swoosh on it.' They started coming up with their own colors."

"Every month, a new colorway would come out. So style has evolved over the years, right? What are you seeing in the streets right now? I'm just seeing anything wear anything, man. They got crushed 1s, never got new 1s. Lately, I've been seeing some new 1s here and there."

"That's how I like them. I also did a lot of research growing up and understanding what the culture is, but maybe it's doing a full circle again. So we've taken you all around Baltimore. We started out at the front of Cinderella Shoes on the corner of Park Heights and Spaulding on the West Side,..."

"Came to the East Side to see my man Ayman at the Carpet World Headquarters. Thank you for having us, bro. Thank you for having me. Baltimore is for sure a pillar and major influence in the rise of the Air Force 1."

"The styles have evolved over the years, but the energy remains the same. The city definitely helped elevate the Nike classic, but we aren't the only ones."

Air Force 1 Color of the Month: Baltimore