Brand
Nike
Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight founded Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964 to import Japanese running shoes, and the company became Nike in the early 1970s with a Swoosh drawn by Carolyn Davidson, then a design student at Portland State. From Beaverton, Oregon, it grew into the biggest sportswear company in the world, and much of sneaker culture still follows its release calendar. Bruce Kilgore's Air Force 1 arrived in 1982. Peter Moore designed the Air Jordan 1 and the Dunk, both released in 1985, and the Dunk came back through Nike SB in 2002. Tinker Hatfield, trained as an architect, gave the Air Max 1 its visible Air unit in 1987. The collaborations get as much attention as the originals, from Supreme's Dunks to Virgil Abloh's The Ten in 2017 and Jerry Lorenzo's Air Fear of God 1 in 2018. The banned Air Jordan story gets a careful look, since the shoe the NBA objected to was largely the Air Ship. Stories explain who designed each shoe, how the first colorways looked and how the retros compare. Davidson was paid $35 for the Swoosh in 1971.
Stories
SneakersFeature5 min read
Air Jordan 1, the 1985 Sneaker That Built a Culture
Peter Moore's red, black and white high top turned a rookie endorsement into the most influential sneaker ever made. The ban myth turns out to be the best part.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Culture4 min read
Virgil Abloh, Off-White and the Age of Quotation Marks
An architecture graduate from Rockford put quotation marks on Nike, IKEA and Louis Vuitton. Five years on, the punctuation is still doing the talking.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Sneakers4 min read
Nike Air Max 95, Sergio Lozano's Anatomy Lesson in Neon
Sergio Lozano built a running shoe out of a spine, a rib cage and muscle. London named it after its price tag. Tokyo started robbing people for it.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Culture4 min read
Kith and Ronnie Fieg, From Stock Boy to Store Empire
Three pairs of Asics, 252 of each, and a cereal bar. Ronnie Fieg turned a sneaker buyer's eye into one of the most watched retail brands in the world.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Sneakers4 min read
Nike Air Max 1 and the Window That Changed Sneakers
In 1987 Tinker Hatfield cut a hole in a midsole and let everyone see the cushioning inside. The Air Max 1 made engineering the main event.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Sneakers4 min read
Nike Dunk History, From College Colors to the Pigeon Riot
The Dunk was a 1985 team shoe that basketball forgot. Skaters, Japanese collectors and Sandy Bodecker's Nike SB turned it into the most hunted sneaker of the 2000s.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Culture4 min read
Supreme and the Rise of the Drop Model
A Lafayette Street skate shop turned Thursday mornings into a ritual, scarcity into a business plan and a $30 brick into a collectible.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Culture4 min read
Palace Skateboards, the Tri-Ferg and London's Cheekiest Brand
A squat near the Southbank, an impossible triangle and a sense of humor nobody in skating could copy. How Palace made London matter again.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Culture4 min read
Stüssy, the Laguna Beach Signature That Started Streetwear
A surfboard shaper signed his boards in marker, printed the scrawl on a T-shirt and accidentally drew the blueprint for every streetwear brand that followed.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Sneakers4 min read
Nike Air Force 1 and the Baltimore Stores That Saved It
Nike killed the Air Force 1 in 1984. Three shops in Baltimore refused to let it go, and the shoe has barely been out of production since.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Culture4 min read
Inside the Sneaker Resale Economy, From Flight Club to StockX
A pair of shoes can change hands several times before anyone wears it. The machinery runs from the consignment wall to the authentication bench.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Culture3 min read
Fear of God and Jerry Lorenzo, the Long T-Shirt That Built a Label
A ballplayer's son with an MBA and no fashion training made extra-long tees, caught Kanye West's eye and taught American luxury to relax.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
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