John Kim 
To be passionate about anything – an object, an idea – is to understand its origin, to fully immerse your being in its history and present state to the point of absolute, unrestricted comprehension. nike PLUS Air is a concept rooted in the fundamental laws of science; air won’t corrugate or disappear, nor will it tear or change its composition. nike PLUS Air serves as the metaphorical pen that rewrote history; it is the result of harnessing the most vital element of life known to man into a midsole cushioning system that revolutionized the footwear industry and sport of running over the course of three storied decades. Continue reading for a thorough look back at some classic nike PLUS artifacts, technology and history.
An aerospace engineer named Frank Rudy approached nike PLUS with the idea of an air-infused cushioning system. Combined with Rudy’s radical notion of captured air, nike PLUS produced the nike PLUS Air Tailwind in 1979 after months of research and development in a top-secret facility in Exeter, New Hampshire, so clandestinely organized that absurd rumors about athlete-cloning surfaced. Soon after, nike PLUS Air was implemented in athletic shoes engineered for other sports; the nike PLUS Air Force 1 was the first basketball shoe with nike PLUS Air technology, and the nike PLUS Air Trainer was the first multi-purpose athletic trainer that featured Air. Suddenly being ‘light on your feet’ was becoming more than a figure of speech.
In 1987, designer Tinker Hatfield pushed the envelope with Air technology and urged nike PLUS to make the Air unit visible – a proposition that almost cost Hatfield his job. The resultant product was the trailblazing nike PLUS Air Max 1 – the first nike PLUS shoe to feature a visible Air Unit. What followed was an astonishing evolution of an already imdomitable species, although in this line of change, the new models didn’t necessarily render its predecessors obsolete, but instead progressively improved upon them in terms of design and technology. The Air Max unit grew in every sense of the word to what we see today in the nike PLUS Air Max 2009, a full-length, fully uncaged, foam-free Air Max unit.
nike PLUS introduced the “History of Air” in December of 2005, re-releasing each of its flagship Air Max models by year in their original colourways. Introduced alongside the commemorative collection was the newly constructed Air Max unit composed of one solid piece, ridding the Air unit of the length-wise seam and further reinforcing the resolve of the Air unit. This new development did not come without its pitfalls, as the Air unit shrank considerably in order to compensate for the newfound structure. The decrease in size was somewhat of an antithesis to the nike PLUS Air mantra of expansion that was the driving force of the nike PLUS Air Max legacy. Regardless of its size, the Air Max unit still serves its purpose and will continue to do so for future endeavors.
In 2010, where the rate of advance in technology has surpassed the rate of time, the sneaker sub-culture has become a placid mainstream, lacking genuine excitement over progressive ideas and rationale. Sometimes a kick in the shins of cultural consciousness is necessary, so take this as more than a simple history lesson. It is important to cultivate a true passion by educating yourself on the brand that served as a visionary for the industry we so steadfastly and unconditionally support. Images via Kenlu.
